The Snawfus is an albino deer from the folklore of the Ozarks in Arkansas and Missouri. It has supernatural powers but is not dangerous. Some say it can jump into the treetops with ease, while others grant it feathery wings that along with to fly without making a sound, much like an owl. Some accounts give it flowering boughs for antlers.
Leila A. Wade of Republic, Missouri, extensively studied the snawfus, and reported that it gave off spirals of blue smoke. The blue smoke emitted by the snawfus drifted off and cloaked the Ozark hills in a magical blue haze, which can still be seen in autumn.
References
Randolph, V. (1950) Fabulous Monsters in the Ozarks. The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 9(2), pp. 65-75.
Rayburn, O. E. (1960) Some Fabulous Monsters and Other Folk Beliefs from the Ozarks. Midwest Folklore, 10(1), pp. 27-32.
A Book of Creatures 
That’s a lovely, Chagall-esque painting. Thank you. I needed to wake up to something lovely today.
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Thank you *-*
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The concept of flowering antlers is so iconic to me, I’d always wondered if there were any folkloric accounts of such a thing! Love the illustration! Reminiscent of the deers in Annihilation (the film, which was far less interesting than the books but the visuals were entrancing …).
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Or even the deer pokemon with antlers that change with the seasons! I’m assuming it’s just because deer pick vegetation up in the prongs and stuff
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Possibly it has something to do with the fact that newly-growing antlers come in with a fuzzy skin over them that looks a bit like moss on a rock.
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Oh, that’s a lovely drawing 💙
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Thanks!! I wish I could draw more dynamically though :<
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I sympathize – I’m suffering from the same thing right now and I’m not sure what to do to try to fix it!
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Right now the most I can manage is “standing in place”, really. I used to be better 😦
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It’s a peryton!
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But apparently actual folklore. And also harmless.
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Borges may have actually based the peryton off manuscripts. Apparently, winged and flying deer are a common topic in illuminations and heraldry. Also, the pegasus and peryton have some similarities(both part ungulate and part bird) that may have clued to a connection. I highly doubt that the name “peryton” was used before his book and I think he probably made it up, Atlantis and all. Afterall, ancient artists slapped wings on just about everything so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
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That and he never wrote the word peryton apparently! In Spanish it’s peritio.
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Huh, looks like the pokemon Sawsbuck has an ozark inspiration.
Speaking of, both the Snawfus and Sawsbuck maybe inspired by one of the Baron Munchausen tales, where Munchausen’s shot missed and brought some plants onto it, and a year later he saw that it had grown all over it. A similar thing occurs with Snawfus.
Also, I’ve read according to the link below that snawfus is an omen of death due to how white deer are viewed as bad omens.
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/snawfus-15128/
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I don’t think Sawsbuck was inspired by it, mainly because “deer with vegetation antlers” is a rather obvious connection. Also it’s not white or winged so.
I wasn’t able to find Randolph’s book online, which is where that info likely comes from 😦
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You’ve ever seen something short and strange and a year later you’d think it was from a fever dream you had, and the next year you found out it was real the whole time? Yeah, that’s pretty much this.
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Wha-? You’ve seen a snawfus? O_O
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No, I read a description of this thing a while back and kinda thought it was just a weird daydream.
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Besides the blue dust, what made it magical?
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Flight/jumping ability, presumably.
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Love your pic for this. Got a fairy tale quality about it
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Thanks *-*
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Wow this creature is beautiful and I am a huge fan of mythical creatures ❤
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American peryton
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I’m writing a book with the Snawfus in it. I’ve begun to really like the concept of the deer. I did grant it other abilities like it being prophetic, but I never remembered that there were people that said it had wings and others that did not, so it was quite a triumph to realize that the wings that are partly dust, partly imagination, and partly spirit that I gave some of my characters would actually fit the folklore. Imagination rules.
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That sounds awesome!
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I hope it is, though I will say the amount of angst in it makes it feel like a fan fiction lol.
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Thanks, I hope it will be.
(Just gonna say that I somehow wrote down a reply with an old username on impulse, made a comment to excuse that and now they’re gone? Lmao, my mistake has been erased. Thank you what I think is a glitch.(unless they aren’t gone, I am confusion.))
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Dang it, impulse of writing down my old username lol.
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Have you heard of the fillyloo? I can’t find much information but from what I hear its also called the bingbuffer or mountain boomer and is a lizard that hops like a kangaroo but is there anything else to it?
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Mountain boomers are collared lizards, maybe it’s an exaggerated version?
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