Hyperborea
placeHyperborea was a legendary land of perpetual sunshine and plenty beyond the north wind, where people lived in bliss for a thousand years.
The Myth
Hyperborea lay beyond Boreas (the north wind) — a paradise where the sun shone twenty-four hours. Its people, the Hyperboreans, lived free from toil and war, devoted to Apollo who spent his winters there. They never grew sick or old. Every year they sent sacred gifts to Apollo's temple at Delos, passed from people to people across the intervening lands. Pindar described it as unreachable by ship or foot. Some modern scholars connect Hyperborea to knowledge of the Arctic midnight sun.
Symbols
Fun Fact
The concept of Hyperborea may preserve ancient knowledge of the Arctic midnight sun — a real "land beyond the north wind" where the sun never sets.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth:
Explore Further
Apollo
godGod of light, music, poetry, and prophecy. Apollo embodied the Greek ideal of youthful masculine...
Boreas
godBoreas was the god of the cold north wind, bringer of winter.
Delos
placeDelos was a tiny island in the Cyclades, sacred as the birthplace of the twin gods Apollo and...
Acheron
placeThe Acheron was the River of Woe in the underworld, which the dead had to cross — in some...
Aeaea
placeAeaea was the mythical island home of Circe, the divine sorceress who transformed Odysseus's men...
Arcadia
placeArcadia was both a real mountainous region in the central Peloponnese and an idealised landscape of...