Hyperborea - 'Land of the North'

Hyperborea was a fabulous realm of eternal spring located in the far north beyond the land of winter. Its people were a blessed, long-lived race free of war, hard toil, and the ravages of old age and disease.

Hyperborea was usually described as a continent-bound land, bordered by the great earth-encircling river Okeanos to the north, and the great peaks of the mythical Rhipaion mountains to the south. Its main river was the Eridanos, which flowed south, drawing its waters directly from the Okean-stream. The shores of this stream were lined by amber-bearing poplar trees and its waters inhabited by flocks of white swans. Blessed with eternal spring, the land producing two crops of grain per year. But most of the country was wild, covered with rich and beautiful forests, "the garden of Apollon."

To the south the realm was guarded by the bitterly cold peaks of the near-impassable Rhipaion mountains. This was the home of Boreas, god of the north wind, whose chill breath brought winter to all the lands to the south--Skythia, Thrake, Istria, Celtica, Italy and Greece. The peaks of the mountains were also the home of Griffins (eagle-lions), and its valleys were inhabited by the fierce, one-eyed Arimaspoi tribe. Directly to the south lay Pterophoros, a desolate, snow-covered land cursed by eternal winter.

Hyperborea was a theocracy ruled by three priests of the god Apollon. These gigantic kings, known as the Boreades, were sons or descendants of the north wind Boreas. Their capital contained a circular temple dedicated to the god where hecatombs of asses were sacrificed in his honour. The musical race also celebrated his divinity with a constant festival music, song and dance. The hymns were joined by the sweet song of circling, white Hyperborean swans.

The land appears in several myths. The first of these was the story of Phaethon, the boy who tried to fly the chariot of the sun, but lost control, and was struck down by Zeus with a thunderbolt, His flaming body fell into the Hyperborean river Eridanos, where his mourning sisters, the Heliades, gathered and were transformed into amber-shedding poplar trees. His friend Kyknos, in his grief, leapt into the bitumen lake of Phaethon's fall, and was transformed into a swan. Hyperboreans afterwards leapt in this same very lake as they were approaching death and were transformed into singing white swans. The bird migrated to the Lydian river Kaystros and other places in the south, but remained mute beyond its homeland.

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