He features in a short myth where he is chosen to be the sacrificial victim for a beast called Sybaris that terrorised Delphi and the surrounding area, a prototypical example of the hero slays a monster and saves a princess tale.
The masculine first name Alkyoneus, along with the feminine spelling Alkyone, is derived from the ancient Greek noun alkuṓn (ἀλκυών), which refers to a sea-bird distinct for its mournful song,[1] usually the common kingfisher bird in particular.
[7] The myth is the typical heroic tale where the fearsome monster that demands a human sacrifice is slain, the most famous of which in Greek mythology is that of Perseus and Andromeda whom he saved from a sea-monster sent by the sea-god Poseidon.
[11] The tale of Alcyoneus and Eurybarus is identical to a legend said about Euthymos, an early fifth-century BC Olympic victor from Locri, in which he saved a Temesian woman from being sacriced to a ghostly monster and then married her.
[12][10] A notable subversion is that in this case, the ogre is female and its beautiful victim male, and similarly the couple is a homosexual one, both rare variants of the dragon-slayer fairytale type (ATU 300 in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index).