HYPERBOREANS (`Tirep(3bpeot, `Taepf3bpeiot)

This article appears in Volume V14, Page 200 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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HYPERBOREANS (`Tirep(3bpeot, `Taepf3bpeiot) , a mythical people intimately connected with the

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

of Apollo. Their name does not occur in the Iliad or the Odyssey, but Herodotus (iv. 32) states chat they were mentioned in Hesiod and in the Epigoni, an epic of the Theban cycle. According to Herodotus, two maidens, Opis and Arge, and later two others, Hyperoche and Laodice, escorted by five men, called by the Delians Perpherees, were sent by the Hyperboreans with certain offerings to Delos. Finding that their messengers did not return, the Hyperboreans adopted the plan of wrapping the offerings in wheat-straw and requested their neighbours to hand them on to the next nation, and so on, till they finally reached Delos. The theory of H. L.

Ahrens

AHRENS, FRANZ HEINRICH LUDOLF (1809–1881)

, that Hyperboreans and Perpherees are identical, is now widely accepted. In some of the dialects of northern

Greece

GREECE

(especially Macedonia and Delphi) had a tendency to become 13. The

original

ORIGINAL

form of Ilepcepees was virepckepizat or inripcbopoi (" those who carry over "), which becoming iorip13opot. gave rise to the popular derivation from (3opias (" dwellers beyond the north wind "). The Hyperboreans were thus the bearers of the sacrificial gifts to Apollo over land and sea, irrespective of their

home

, the name being given to Delphians, Thessalians, Athenians and Delians. It is objected by O. Schroder that the form llepck pees requires a passive meaning, " those who are carried round the altar," perhaps dancers like the whirling dervishes; distinguishing them from the Hyperboreans, he explains the latter as those who live " above
the mountains," that is, in heaven. Under the influence of the derivation from /3opEas, the

home

of the Hyperboreans was placed in a region beyond the north wind, a paradise like the Elysian plains, inaccessible by land or sea, whither Apollo could remove those mortals who had lived a life of piety. It was a land of perpetual sunshine and

great

GREAT

fertility; its inhabitants were free from disease and war. The duration of their life was i000 years, but if any desired to shorten it, he decked himself with garlands and threw himself from a

rock

. into the sea. The close connexion of the Hyperboreans with the cult of Apollo may be seen by comparing the Hyperborean myths, the characters of which by their names mostly recall Apollo or Artemis (Agyieus, Opis, Hecaergos, Loxo), with the ceremonial of the Apolline

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

. No meat was eaten at the Pyanepsia; the Hyperbpreans were vegetarians. At the festival of Apollo at Leucas a victim flung himself from a

rock

into the sea, like the Hyperborean who was tired of life. According to an Athenian decree (380 B.C.) asses were sacrificed to Apollo at Delphi, and

Pindar

PINDAR (Gr. HivSapos, c. 522–443 B.c.)

(Pythias x. 33) speaks of " hecatombs of asses " being offered to him by the Hyperboreans. As the latter conveyed sacrificial gifts to Delos hidden in wheat-straw, so at the Thargelia a sheaf of corn was carried round in procession, concealing a symbol of the god (for other resemblances see Crusius's article). Although the Hyperborean legends are mainly connected with Delphi and Delos, traces of them are found in Argos (the stories of Heracles, Perseus, Io), Attica, Macedonia, Thrace, Sicily and Italy (which

Niebuhr

NIEBUHR, BARTHOLD GEORG (1776–1831)
KARSTEN
- KARSTEN, KARL JOHANN BERNHARD (1782-1853)
_1733_1815_.html">NIEBUHR,
KARSTEN
- KARSTEN, KARL JOHANN BERNHARD (1782-1853)
(1733-1815)

indeed considers their

original

ORIGINAL

home). In modern times the name has been applied to a group of races, which includes the Chukchis, Koryaks, Yukaghirs, Ainus, Gilyaks and Kamchadales, inhabiting the arctic regions of Asia and America. But if ever ethnically one, the Asiatic and American branches are now
as far apart from each other as they both are from the Mongolo-Tatar stock.
See O. Crush's in Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie; O. Schroder in Archie fiir Religionswissenschaft (1904), viii. 69; W. Mannhardt, Wald- and Feldkulte (19(35) ; L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States (1907), iv. 100.

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