A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter P

Peryton

Folklore
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A fantastic deerlike creature whose shadow appears human rather than animal.

Detailed Definition
The peryton is a modern legendary creature popularized in twentieth-century fantastic literature, where it is described as a stag or winged deer casting the shadow of a human being. Its uncanny silhouette suggests a person’s lost or displaced soul, and stories often connect it with violence, exile, or the desire to become fully embodied. In poetry, the Peryton is useful for exploring divided identity: the animal body carries an unfamiliar human shadow, while the shadow may reveal a history the creature cannot speak.
Example
Example in poetry:
A fantasy poem may show a Peryton casting the shadow of a human while its body remains that of a winged deer; The Peryton’s impossible shadow can symbolize guilt, lost identity, or a divided self; A hunter who follows the Peryton into the mountains may discover that pursuit changes him; Antler, feather, and shadow imagery can help the poet build a memorable supernatural symbol.
Additional Notes
The peryton is a modern fantastic creature popularized in twentieth-century fantasy writing, especially in accounts that describe a deerlike body casting a human-shaped shadow. That mismatch between body and shadow gives the creature a strong poetic association with disguise, lost identity, guilt, and the double. It is often pictured with antlers and sometimes wings, although details vary by adaptation. The peryton is not a widely attested ancient folklore being, so students should identify it as a literary or modern mythic invention when precision matters. Related concepts include doppelgänger, omen, stag, shadow, and metamorphosis.
Also Known As
Winged Stag Mythic Deer-Bird Shadow-Casting Peryton Heraldic Peryton
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