In Greek mythology, according to tradition, the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who lived far to the north of Thrace. The Greeks thought that Boreas, the North Wind, lived in Thrace, and that therefore Hyperborea was an unspecified nation in the northern lands beyond Scythia. Their land, called Hyperborea or Hyperboria ? "beyond the Boreas" ? was perfect, with the sun shining twenty-four hours a day.

Never the Muse is absent

from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry

and everywhere maiden choruses whirling.

Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed

in their sacred blood; far from labor and battle they live.

(Pindar, Tenth Pythian Ode, Richmond Lattimore, translator).

Reaching such exotic lands is never easy; Pindar cautioned:

Never on land or by sea will you find

the marvelous road to the feast of the Hyperborea.

Legends

Alone among the Twelve Olympians, Apollo was venerated among the Hyperboreans: he spent his winter amongst them.^[1] For their part the Hyperboreans sent mysterious gifts, packed in straw that came first to Dodona and then were passed from people to people until they came to Apollo's temple on Delos (Pausanias). Abaris, Hyperborean priest of Apollo, was a legendary wandering healer and seer. Theseus and Perseus also visited the Hyperboreans.

Along with Thule, Hyperborea was one of several terrae incognitae to the Greeks and Romans, where Pliny and Herodotus, as well as Virgil and Cicero, reported that people lived to the age of one thousand and enjoyed lives of complete happiness. According to Herodotus (4.13), Aristeas had written a hexameter poem (now lost) about a journey to the Issedones. Beyond these lived the one-eyed Arimaspians, further on there were gold-guarding griffins, and beyond these the Hyperboreans. Hesiod mentioned the Hyperboreans, Herodotus reported, "and Homer also in the Epigoni, if that be really a work of his". Also, the sun was supposed to rise and set only once a year in Hyperborea, which would place it at the North Pole.

In maps based on reference points and descriptions given by Strabo,^[2] Hyperborea, shown variously as a peninsula or island, is located beyond France and has a greater latitudinal than longitudinal extent.^[3] Other descriptions put it in the general area of the Ural Mountains.

Modern interpretations

Map by Abraham Ortelius, Amsterdam 1597: in the upper right corner Hyper Borei are shown on a continent occupying the whole northern polar area.

Since Herodotus places the Hyperboreans beyond the Massagetae and Issedones, both Central Asian peoples, it appears that his Hyperboreans may have lived in Siberia. Heracles sought the golden-antlered hind of Artemis in Hyperborea. As the reindeer is the only deer species of which females bear antlers, this would suggest an arctic or subarctic region. Following J.D.P. Bolton's location of the Issedones on the south-western slopes of the Altay mountains, Carl P.Ruck places Hyperborea beyond the Dzungarian Gate into northern Xinjiang, noting that the Hyperboreans were probably Chinese.^[4] Hecataeus of Abdera, however, clearly places the Hyperboreans in the British Isles.

One theory holds that Hyperborea was derived from a logical (though erroneous) explanation of the Greeks for the fact that embedded inside the amber arriving in their cities by trade with northern, cold countries were insects which obviously originated in a warm climate.

Not aware of the explanation offered by modern science (i.e. that these insects had lived in times when the climate of northern Europe was much warmer, their bodies preserved unchanged in the amber) the Greeks came up with the idea that north countries being cold was due to the cold breath of Boreas, the North Wind. Therefore, should one be able to get beyond him (Hyperborea literally means "beyond Boreas") one would find a warm and sunny land.

The term "Hyperborean" sees some self-consciously jocular contemporary use to refer to any who live in a cold climate.^[5] Under the Library of Congress classification system, the letter subclass PM includes "Hyperborean Languages", a catch-all category that refers to all the linguistically unrelated languages of peoples living in Arctic regions, such as the Inuit.

Modern References

• Tangerine Dream has a title track on their 1983 release of the same name 'Hyperborea'.
• 'Hyperborea' is the opening track of Horse the Band's album A Natural Death.

Hyperborea in Modern Esoteric Thought

H.P. Blavatsky, Rene Guenon and Julius Evola all shared the belief in the Hyperborean, polar origins of mankind and a subsequent solidification and devolution (cf. http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/Articles/hyperborea.html). According to these esoterists, Hyperborea was the Golden Age polar center of civilization and spirituality; and Humankind does not rise from the ape, but progressively physicalizes into the apelike condition as it strays physically and spiritually from its mystical otherworldly homeland in the Far North, succumbing to the demonic energies of the South Pole, the greatest point of materialization (see Joscelyn Godwin, Arktos: The Polar Myth).

Cultural references

• Australian artist Norman Lindsay in July 1923 first exhibited his etching Hyperborea in Sydney. A month later he published two essays about Hyperborea, the first in Vision, No. 2, in which he said that only a picture or a poem could describe Hyperborea. The essays were later combined as Hyperborea: Two Fantastic Travel Essays by Fanfrolico Press in 1928.
• Clark Ashton Smith authored a series of short stories known as the Hyperborean cycle (1931-58). Some elements were borrowed by H. P. Lovecraft into what later became known as the Cthulhu Mythos. In Robert E. Howard's Conan stories (1932-36), Hyperborea is a land to the north-east of Conan's native Cimmeria.
• The "Hyperboreans" (Hyperboreisch-römische Gesellschaft) was a group of northern European scholars who studied classical ruins in Rome, founded in 1824 by Theodor Panofka, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg , August Kestner and Eduard Gerhard.
• Friedrich Nietzsche referred to those who followed his philosophy as "Hyperboreans" in The Antichrist (translated by Anthony M. Ludovici.)
• Hyperborea and its inhabitants are referenced on occasion in the Hellboy comic book universe, particularly in the miniseries Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus.
• Is one of the regions far north in Rome:Total War.
• Bal-Sagoth metal band features one of the stories of their lyrics in the Hyperborean Empire.

Notes

Referred to in the original version of Moby Dick, or the Whale by Hermman Melville.

References

• Portions of this article were formerly excerpted from the public domain Lemprière's Classical Dictionary, 1848.

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