TFA says that a peryton, a class of astronomical signal, is named for a mythological beast, a winged elk. After first shuddering over the idea of an elk flying over one's head, I went to Google to find more about this as I've never heard of this beast before. Its source appears to be from author Jorge Borges who claims to have found a reference in an medieval manuscript. There appears to be no substantiating evidence elsewhere which is why it isn't as well known as other creatures of mythology.
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TFA says that a peryton, a class of astronomical signal, is named for a mythological beast, a winged elk. After first shuddering over the idea of an elk flying over one's head, I went to Google to find more about this as I've never heard of this beast before. Its source appears to be from author Jorge Borges who claims to have found a reference in an medieval manuscript. There appears to be no substantiating evidence elsewhere which is why it isn't as well known as other creatures of mythology.
Borges used to deliberately make up medieval sources and reference non-existent works of literature. It's in his genre, see [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tl%C3%B6n,_Uqbar,_Orbis_Tertiu...
Not a single reference in the OED.