Stymphalian birds

Accounts vary. In some traditions the birds infest the marsh/lake of Stymphalia in Arcadia and are described as kept by Artemis or reared by Ares; other accounts give etiologies such as migration to the marsh (one explanation says they migrated to escape wolves). Mnaseas records an alternative tradition in which the Stymphalian figures were human women — daughters of Stymphalus and Ornis — who, in that version, were represented as birds in the temple of Artemis and depicted as maidens with bird feet (Pausanias’ report of statues). After Heracles’ attack many birds were driven or killed; some survivors are said in later tradition to have relocated to the island of Aretias in the Euxine Sea, where they later encountered the Argonauts.

Described variously as roughly the size of a crane and sometimes likened in form to an ibis but with a stronger, non‑curved beak. Sources report beaks of bronze or exceptionally powerful beaks and ‘‘sharp metallic’’ feathers that could be launched as darts; their dung is described as poisonous in summary accounts. Variant iconography and reports (Mnaseas; Pausanias) show them represented as birds in cult contexts and, in one tradition, as women or maidens with bird feet.

They are aggressive, man‑eating birds that wound and kill people and destroy crops, fruit trees, and towns. Classical summaries state that their beaks pierce bronze and iron armour, and that they could launch sharp metallic feathers as projectiles. Poisonous dung is attributed to them in some accounts. In the Heracles narrative Athena gives Heracles a crotalum (rattle) which he shakes to frighten them into the air; he then shoots many with arrows (some versions say arrows were tipped with Hydra's blood).