Peryton

The Peryton is a legendary creature but he is not evil. Often depicted as a winged deer, the Peryton was said to have the head, neck, forelegs and antlers of a deer and the plumage, wings and hindquarters of a large bird. Though these physical characteristics may seem strange legend has it that the Peryton's shadow was even stranger. The shadow was that of a winged deer as the physical characteristics would suggest but instead appeared in the form of a man. This strange shadow led many scholars of the time to speculate at the Peryton were the spiritual manifestations of travels that perished far from the shores of home, the souls of murders trapped in bestial bodies or the ghosts of long dead sailors.

Appearance:

The Peryton is a mythological hybrid animal combining the physical features of a stag and a bird. The Peryton was created and described by Jorge Luis Borges in his Book of Imaginary Beings, using a supposedly long-lost medieval manuscript as a source.

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.

Chronology:

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.

The earliest verifiable account of the Peryton occurs in Jorge Luis Borges Book of Imaginary Beings, in which he refers a manuscript, now lost in the sands of time, as his source. In more recent years the Peryton became more widely known because of its inclusion in the first edition Monster Manual from the popular role playing game Dungeons and Dragons.


Outside of the encounter by Roman statesmen and General Publius Cornelius Scipio and his sailors sometime between 237 and 183 BC no documented sightings of the Peryton could be found at this time.

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The Beast of Bray Road

The Beast of Bray Road is a hairy cryptid with canine features that was sighted near the towns of Delavan and Elkhorn in Wisconsin, mainly during the 1990s. It was labeled a werewolf in local folklore. Most cryptozoologists have decided to label it a Bigfoot in order to avoid dealing with the scientific absurdities involved with werewolves. However, some people think that it is a cryptid canine instead. Some researchers consider the Beast of Bray Road to be identical to a kind of Wisconsin Bigfoot named the "Bluff Monster" or the "Eddy." Other names that have been applied to the Beast of Bray Road include the "Bear-Wolf" and the "Indigenous Dogman."
The Beast of Bray Road counts as the most famous of modern American werewolves. It has been in the media regularly since the first sightings were publicised, and even had a low-budget movie based on its legend. Because of the numerous witnesses who have claimed to see this creature, the evidence supporting the Beast of Bray Road is far greater than the evidence supporting almost any other werewolf legend.

Appearance:

The Beast of Bray Road is described by purported witnesses in several ways: as a bear-like creature, as a hairy biped resembling Bigfoot, and as an unusually large (2–4 feet tall on all fours, 7 feet tall standing up) intelligent wolf-like creature apt to walk on its hind legs and weighing 400-700 pounds. It was said that its fur is a brown gray color resembling a dog or bear.Although the Beast of Bray Road has not been seen to transform from a human into a wolf in any of the sightings, it has been labeled a werewolf in newspaper articles.

Explanation:

A Number of theories have been proposed.They include that the creature is an undiscovered variety of wild dog, a waheela (A prehistoric wolf similar to Amarok), or a wolfdog or a coydog.

It is also possible that hoaxes and mass hysteria have caused some falsehoods and sightings of normal creatures that have been lumped under the same label. Concurrently with the sightings in Wisconsin, there was a rash of similar encounters in the neighboring state of Michigan. Following the release of "The Legend", a popular song about the Michigan Dogman in 1987, author Steve Cook received dozens of reports, including photograph and film evidence. There is no known link between the sightings in adjoining states, other than the similarity of the creature described.

Cryptozoologists, of course, do not generally take shapeshifters seriously unless they are fringe cryptozoologists who hold more of a paranormal view of things. Therefore, as with other werewolf reports, there is a tendency to force the evidence into a more acceptable interpretation, discarding whatever circumstances and details of witness testimony that do not fit with the chosen hypothesis.

We would still have to throw out some sightings, or we would have to assume that some witnesses were mistaken in their descriptions or that not all witnesses were seeing the same creature.

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