Hyperborea
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In Greek mythology, according to tradition, the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who lived to the far north of Greece. Their land, called Hyperborea, or Hyperboria ("beyond the Boreas (north wind)"), was perfect, with the Sun shining twenty-four hours a day.
The Greeks thought that Boreas, the god of the north wind, lived in Thrace, and therefore Hyperborei was an unspecified nation in the northern parts of Europe and Asia. Alone among the Twelve Olympians, Apollo was venerated among the Hyperboreans: he spent his winter amongst them. 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). Theseus and Perseus also visited the Hyperboreans.
In Greek maps from the time of Alexander the Great, Hyperborea, shown variously as a peninsula or island, is located beyond France and has a greater latitudinal than longitudinal extent. Apparently Hyperborea is a combined notion of present day Britain and Norway/Sweden. Other description put in the general area of the Ural Mountains.
What is remarkable about Hyperborea is that it 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) the Hyperboreans lived beyond the Arimaspians and were visited by Aristeas, who is said to have written a hexameter poem (now lost) dealing with them. 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 Hyperborei. Large quantities of gold were here, guarded by griffins.
As with other legends of this sort, some details can be reconciled with modern knowledge. Above the Arctic Circle, from the time of the vernal equinox to the time of the autumnal equinox, the sun can shine for twenty-four hours a day. At the North Pole, the Sun rises and sets only once a year - possibly leading to the erroneous conclusion that a "day" for such persons is a year long, and therefore that living a thousand days would be the same as living a thousand years.
Abaris and Ilithyia are Hyperboreans.
The term "Hyperborean" sees some contemporary use to refer to any who live in a cold climate. For instance, under the Library of Congress classification system, the letter subclass PM includes "Hyperborean Languages", which refers to all the linguistically unrelated languages of peoples living in Arctic regions, such as the Inuit.
Hyperboreans in Nazi mysticism
Hyperboreans consistently play a large role in Nazi, neo-nazi, and proto-nazi mysticism.
Miguel Serrano was a Chilean diplomat and major proponent of Esoteric Hitlerism. He believed that Hitler fled to Shambhala, an underground centre in Antarctica after World War II (formerly at the North Pole and Tibet), where he was in contact with the Hyperborean gods and from whence he would someday emerge with a fleet of UFOs to lead the forces of light (the Hyperboreans, sometimes associated with Vril) over the forces of darkness (inevitably including, for Serrano, the Jews) in a last battle and inaugurating a Fourth Reich. He also connected the Aryans and their Hyperborean gods to the Sun and the Allies and the Jews to the Moon.
Julius Evola believed Hyperboreans were Nordic supermen, originating in the North Pole. He felt they had a crucial hand in the founding of Atlantis.
Portions of this article were excerpted from the public domain Lempriere's Dictionary of 1848.
Popular culture
- In the fiction of Robert E. Howard, Hyperborea is a far northern land of fair-haired barbarians, to the north and east of Conan's native Cimmeria.
- Inspired by Howard, H.P. Lovecraft used the name in his mythology for his version of Atlantis.
- Hellboy comics have made use of Lovecraft's image and Hyperborea's links with Nazi mysticism.
- Clark Ashton Smith wrote a cycle of ten stories set in an ancient version of Greenland during a warm habitable phase, see Hyperborea (Clark Ashton Smith).
- In the 1977 Ray Harryhausen classic fantasy film Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Sinbad the sailor journeys to Hyperborea.
- In the game Rome: Total War, Hyperboria is depicted as the land north of Scythia and Germania.
- Hyperborea is also an online, text-based game, called a MUD, started in 1993.
- A 1983 album by Tangerine Dream
See also
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