Lyre of Appylon

Summary

Bird gods often competed with one another for the right to be the god of music. The Goldfinch, the Chickadee, the Warbler, even the many Crows and Parrots long since held competitions to declare the rightful god of sweet songs and melodies, never finding true winners. The domain had been dominated by the birds for millennia, singing, crowing, calling over The Land of Gods in their dawnlight contests and filling the world with song.
Annoyed by the constant noise and superiority of the birds, the god Appylon with the energy of youth and anger of sleep consistently interrupted, constructed an instrument for himself of spider's silk and grapevine to play over the birds, lulling the loudest among them into deep sleep for 12 days. Their roles as the musicians unfulfilled, the deer took their place in granting blessings and boons to lovers of music and took up their mantles in their absence.
Devastated by the loss of their followers, many of whom moved to the deer's cult, the birds hatched a plan to steal away Appylon's lyre while he bathed and it was unguarded. They stretched the strings with intent to snap them when the young god noticed, and took on divine form to stop them, getting his antlers caught in the spiderweb they were made from. In the struggle, the webbing, now a net, caught ahold of the sun, trapped as a crown above his head. His attempts to wretch the sun free burned his scorched his hands into ash as night fell over the world for a whole day and two nights until he ripped it free to be placed back in the sky.
In revenge, Appylon set the birds asleep again by plucking the strings of his destroyed lyre against branches of the forest to keep them from singing again so early in the morn, to which whenever his spells wore away, they sung again louder and louder, earlier and earlier until they began at the day's first early light.

Historical Basis

Appylon's aspect as a god of music is well known, but it is unknown if he gained the aspect as a result of the myth, or if the myth is a result of his aspect. Many of Appylon's sigils align with the myth quite closely and his personality, as well as his distaste for many of the bird gods, such as the Goldfinch in particular, leading to speculation that some parts of the myth are closer to the truth.

In Art

Often, the god of deer is depicted with a lyre or harp of some kind as a result of the myth, with few depictions of him with one existing prior to the myth's largest spreads outside of his cult.