This magical creature is a strange nocturnal bird that looks golden in colour. It's feathers are believed to appear beautiful like metal, golden and silver, sometimes with shining green at its wings. The bird is believed to be from folklore of Chile, but some have claimed to have seen it for themselves. This amazingly golden bird eats metals, making them look what they eat so that gives them a metallic appearance. The alicanto is a flightless bird, or perhaps it just can't fly because of the weight of metals. If these birds feed on more gold, they will shine like the sun. If they eat more silver, they will shine like the moon. They lay two eggs, that would display colours of silver or gold, depending on what they have eaten.
The alicanto lives in caves and seen in areas with mountains. Miners have tried looking for it, in the hopes of finding the alicanto's food, which is part of the entierro treasure horde legend. The bird is clever and will lead them astray, going deep into the tunnels until the miners get lost, or lead them off a cliff. It's assumed that a famous Chilean miner named Juan Godoy had encountered an alicanto bird that led him to a grotto of silver in 1832. This led to a silver rush in Chile at the time.
Source Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges.
She Wolf Night
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