Peryton

The peryton is a legendary creature combining physical features of a stag and a bird. Often depicted as a winged deer, the peryton was said to have the head, neck, forelegs and antlers of a stag, combined with the plumage, wings and hindquarters of a large bird. It was said to hail from the lost continent of Atlantis.

Legend has it that this awkward combination produced an even more bizarre shadow. By some accounts, ancient texts note that the peryton's shadow was said to resemble that of a human being. This led many scholars of the day to assume that these creatures were the spiritual manifestations of travelers who had perished far from the shores of home.

Although one might assume - based on the description of these animals - that perytons were regarded by the ancients as docile herbivores, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there are numerous reports which credit this species with having a ravenous taste for human flesh and being instrumental in the fall of Rome.

One account, which was chronicled by an unnamed rabbi in Fez during the 16th century, states that Publius Cornelius Scipio encountered a flock of these beasts near the Strait of Gibraltar sometime between 237 and 183 BC. According to this rabbinic historian, Scipio and his soldiers were attacked by a flying hoard of these animals, who seemed impervious to their weapons. As to the fate of these winged cervids, no one knows.

Some say the peryton is the soul of a murderer trapped in a stag's body.

The earliest verifiable account of the peryton occurs in Jorge Luis Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings, in which he refers to a now-lost medieval manuscript as a source. The word is completely unknown in classical sources and from morphological and thematic characteristics one could conclude that if is not a completely modern invention, neither could it be of any origin earlier than the medieval period. The concept of the peryton became widely known due to its inclusion in the first edition Monster Manual from the popular role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.