The peryton is a mythological hybrid animal combining the physical features of a stag and a bird. The peryton was first named by Jorge Luis Borges in his 1957 Book of Imaginary Beings, using the fictional device of a supposedly long-lost medieval manuscript.

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The peryton is said to have the head, neck, forelegs and antlers of a stag, combined with the plumage, wings and hindquarters of a large bird, although some interpretations portray the peryton as a deer in all but coloration and bird's wings.

According to Borges, perytons lived in Atlantis until an earthquake destroyed the civilization and the creatures escaped by flight. A peryton casts the shadow of a man until it kills one during its lifetime, at which time it starts to cast its own shadow. A sibyl once prophesied that the perytons would lead to the downfall of Rome.^[1]

Some historical versions of the heraldry of King Charles VI of France featured winged stags as heraldic supports,^[2] as did some versions of the late medieval battle standard of the Dukes of Bourbon;^[3] Borges is thus clearly not the inventor of the concept, though the name 'Peryton' may be his addition.

Perytons are found or used in modern literature and games.

• The creatures appear in Darkwell, a book in The Moonshae Trilogy, where a flock of perytons are among an army of evil monsters summoned by the book's main antagonist.^[4]
• The peryton features in John and Carole Barrowman's novel Hollow Earth.^[5]
• Perytons appear in Across the Green Grass Fields, the 6th of the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire.^[6]
• A group of Perytons appear in the fourth Fablehaven book by Brandon Mull, Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary.^[7]

The term peryton is also used for radio signals of terrestrial origin that mimic fast radio bursts, pulses that appear to be coming from outside of our galaxy.^[8] These perytons were found to be the result of premature opening of a microwave oven door, which releases a frequency-swept radio pulse, which mimics a fast radio burst, as the magnetron turns off.^[9]

• Hybrid (mythology)