The Stymphalian birds are man-eating birds with beaks of
bronze, sharp metallic feathers they could launch at their victims, and poisonous dung.
These fly against those who come to hunt them, wounding and killing them with their beaks. All armour of bronze or iron that men wear is pierced by the birds; but if they weave a garment of thick cork, the beaks of the Stymphalian birds are caught in the cork garment, just as the wings of small birds stick in bird-lime. These birds are of the size of a crane, and are like the ibis, but their beaks are more powerful, and not crooked like that of the ibis.
These birds were pets of
Artemis, the goddess of the hunt; or had been brought up by
Ares, the god of war.[4] They migrated to a marsh in
Arcadia to escape a pack of
wolves. There they bred quickly and swarmed over the countryside, destroying crops, fruit trees, and townspeople.
The Sixth Labour of Heracles
The Stymphalian birds were defeated by
Heracles (Hercules) in his
sixth labour for
Eurystheus.[5][6] Heracles could not go into the marsh to reach the nests of the birds, as the ground would not support his weight.
Athena, noticing the hero's plight, gave Heracles a rattle called krotala, which
Hephaestus had made especially for the occasion. Heracles shook the krotala (similar to
castanets) on a certain mountain that overhung the lake and thus frightening the birds into the air.[7] Heracles then shot many of them with feathered arrows tipped with poisonous blood from the slain
Hydra. In some versions of this story this labour was discounted because of the help of
Athena.[citation needed] The rest flew far away, never to plague Arcadia again. Heracles brought some of the slain birds to Eurystheus as proof of his success.[8][9][10]
The surviving birds made a new home on the island of Aretias in the
Euxine Sea. The
Argonauts later encountered them there.
According to
Mnaseas,[11] they were not birds, but women and daughters of
Stymphalus and Ornis, and were killed by Heracles because they did not receive him hospitably. In the temple of the Stymphalian Artemis, however, they were represented as birds, and behind the temple, there were white marble statues of maidens with birds' feet.[12]
Classical literature sources
Chronological listing of the main classical literature sources for the Stymphalian birds (not comprehensive):
Sophocles, The Philoctetes, 1092 ff with the Scholiast (trans. Jebb) (Greek tragedy 5th century BC)
Regarding the Sophocles source,
Jebb[13] says
Brunck[14] reads "πτωκάδες" as "πλωάδες" which is an epithet given by Apollonius Rhodius to the Stymphalian birds in Argonautica 2. 1054.
The
PokémonSkarmory is partially based on the Stymphalian birds.
Referenced in Matthew Reilly’s 2016 novel “The Four Legendary Kingdoms” and believed to be the inspiration for the bronze and silver humanoid figures depicted in subsequent novels in the series.
Gallery
Hercules and the Stymphalian Birds' by Gustave Moreau, c 1872
Kayseri Herakles Lahdi
Hercules Killing the Stymphalian Birds by Albrecht Dürer (1500)
Heracles and the Stymphalian birds. Attic black-figure amphora, 500-490 BC
Heracles killing the Stymphalian birds with his sling. Attic black-figured amphora, c. 540 BC. Said to be from Vulci.
Hercules at Lake Stymphalos by Gustave Moreau
Heracles killing the Stymphalian birds with arrows
^"Appendix". Sophocles the Plays and Fragments. Vol. 4. Translated by Jebb, Sir Richard C. Cambridge: The University Press. 1908. p. 248. ark:/13960/t3tt4qq2x.
^"Philoctetes, 1061". Sophoclis Dramata. Translated by Brvnkii, Rich. Franc. Phil. Lipsiae. 1806. p. 652. ark:/13960/t78s5n03b.
^Barrett, Craig: "The Chest of the Aloeids". Dungeon #21 (TSR, January/February 1990), pp.44-63.