In Persian mythology, peris (Persian: پری pari) are descended from fallen angels who have been denied paradise until they have done penance. In earlier sources they are described as agents of evil; later, they are benevolent. They are exquisite, winged, fairy-like creatures ranking between angels and evil spirits. They sometimes visit the realm of mortals. In the "Epic of Kings" - "Epic of Kings By Ferdowsi Translated by Helen Zimmern [1883"]. http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/shahnama.txt. Retrieved October 18, 2011. - in the first section, "THE SHAHS OF OLD", an angel is said to have "appeared like unto a Peri" when warning Kaiumers the "master of the world" of a potential usurper.
Also in the same work, Peris were in the host that Kaiumers gathered to fight to defend against the usurper, (similar to Irish legendary help from supernatural beings). In the same work,in the section named "RUSTEM AND SOHRAB", the hero is befriended by beings who lull and entrap him in ways similar to those of fairy beings. One of these, a princess, is referred to as "Peri-faced" because she is wearing a veil, so the term Peri may include a secondary meaning of disguise or being hidden.
Peris were the target of a lower level of evil beings called دیوسان divs (دَيۋَ daeva), who persecuted them by locking them in iron cages. This persecution was brought about by, as the divs perceived it, the peris' lack of sufficient self-esteem to join the rebellion against good.
In Thomas Moore's poem Paradise and the Peri, part of his Lalla-Rookh, a peri gains entrance to heaven after three attempts at giving an angel the gift most dear to God. The first attempt is "The last libation Liberty draws/From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause," to wit, a drop of blood from a young soldier killed for an attempt on the life of Mahmud of Ghazni. Next is a "Precious sigh/of pure, self-sacrificing love": a sigh stolen from the dying lips of a maiden who died with her lover of plague in the Ruwenzori rather than surviving in exile from the disease and the lover. The third gift, the one that gets the peri into heaven, is a "Tear that, warm and meek/Dew'd that repentant sinner's cheek": the tear of an evil old man who repented upon seeing a child praying in the ruins of the Temple of the Sun at Balbec, Syria. Robert Schumann set Moore's tale to music as a cantata, Paradise and the Peri, using an abridged German translation.
Gilbert and Sullivan's 1882 operetta Iolanthe, is subtitled The Peer and the Peri. However the "peris" in this work are also referred to as "fairies" and have little in common with peris in the Persian sense.
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