Hyperborea

It’s unreachable from here, or from anywhere. It’s almost surely an imaginary place.

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In my early years I read a lot of historical fiction. One book I remember well was five hundred-plus pages long. It bulked with promise. Surely I thought, a book of this size must have much to tell. The title of the book was: Tros of Samothrace. I no longer remember much about the book except that it was very fat. It might have been the first I heard of Hyperborea.

I might have that wrong. It might have been a similar book from the same time. In any case, It was some book from around then, that first hinted at Hyperborea.

The idea that there might be some reality behind such a myth intrigued me.

It wasn’t the only reason I moved from historical fiction to real history, but it was one of the reasons. I’ve since come across Hyperborea in many old books. I’ve never found anything substantial. Still it intrigues me.

I’ve no idea why.

The only information I have about Hyperborea, and Hyperboreans, is ephemeral.

Where is Hyperborea? Who lives there? The people are as shrouded as the land.

It’s somewhere far beyond the northern winds. The Greeks thought the god, Boreas, controlled the winds and icy snow that blew from the north. They thought of the land beyond Boreas as - Hyperborea.

There has never been agreement on where Hyperborea might be. There is agreement that no matter how far north you go, you can’t get there. Surprisingly, the ancients didn’t agree on the climate of Hyperborea. Some thought it frigid, some thought it temperate. Some thought the land north of the northern winds to be free of the northern winds.

If you can’t get there, how can you be sure?

Hyperborea is an idea. It exists beyond space and time. It’s unreachable from here, or from anywhere. It’s almost surely an imaginary place. Despite that, the mystery of Hyperborea has lingered for millennia. The reason the mystery has lingered for so long may be that many have thought Hyperborea to exist in an alternate dimension.

There are many such spaces: Camelot, Faerie Land, Xanadu. and Atlantis. Mystical places that confound reality. When Churchill was asked if he thought King Arthur was real he said,

“If he wasn’t, he should have been”!

Something in the human soul longs for something more real than reality.

The reality of Hyperborea wasn’t always questioned.

Herodotus devoted two pages of his Historia to Hyperborea. He had no definite information to relate, only rumors and hearsay. Herodotus wrote it down anyway, as he always did. He was always careful to distinguish direct experience from what he was told by locals.

He didn’t pass judgement on what he was told. He left that for his readers to decide, which is why he was such a good historian.

Other ancient writers weren’t so careful to be honest as Herodotus. Many had no doubt whatsoever that Hyperborea was a very real place, even if undiscoverable.

Medieval writers read the old books and filled out what was sparsely rumored with their own conjectures. Renaissance writers did the same. Certain modern writers have continued the work of spinning fable into plausiblity, maybe even fact.

Ancient tales described the people of Hyperborea to be seven to ten feet tall. The ancient poet, Callimachus, described a mythical group similar to Hyperboreans, the Arimaspi, as having fair hair. A third century grammarian, Aelius Herodianus wrote that the Arimaspi looked exactly like the Hyperboreans. The sixth century writer, Stephanus of Byzantium, agreed.

Hyperborea was thought to be a place of mystery, and likely the winter home of Apollo.

The climate wasn’t entirely agreed upon.

Muddled though it was, several ideas about Hyperborea persisted:

1. Hyperboreans were outlandishly tall people with fair hair and likely magical power.

(In modern times magical power was altered to technology so very far advanced as to seem magical).

2. Hyperborea was somewhere in the far distant north, despite which, it was inexplicably a land of temperate climate and fertile soil.

3. Wherever Hyperborea may be, it was impossibly north of wherever you were.

The story started, who knows how long ago, in the Mediterranean region. Whatever people lived in the far north were mysterious. So too, the land they lived in. Rumors of tall blond warriors sounded like giants to darker skinned smaller-statured Mediterranean’s.

Who could be sure what strange people did in a strange land so far away?

Reports trickled in.

At one time or another, Ireland, Britain, Scotland, Scandinavia, Siberia, and northernmost China were all considered Hyperborea. In modern times many northern nations like to associate themselves with Hyperborea, especially in tourist folders.

Association with Hyperborea is always good for the box office.

Certain Nazi mystics declared Hyperborea the original home of the Ayrian race.

How perfectly the old myth fit with the new. What better environment for the superheroes the Nazis thought their ancestors to be. The myth of giant, white, blond, super intelligent Hyperboreans seemed made to order. The Nazis took advantage of the stories.

Centuries of Hyperborean speculation provided a lot of raw material.

Speculations and connections abound even now on the internet.

One such is the mystery of Admiral Byrd’s Diary. The Diary may not actually exist.

Even so, the story was widely circulated. Most notably by a pamphlet written by an early UFO enthusiast who was quick to tie the story to the growing number of other UFO stories.

The fabled story in brief: Sometime around 1947, Admiral Byrd, while commander of a major exploratory mission over the South Pole flew over a vast valley-like depression with green forests, tropical temperatures, prehistoric animals and a futuristic crystal city.

Circular flying disks took control of his airplane and conducted Byrd into the crystal city where he spoke to the Master of this unknown land.

The people of this land were tall, blond men. They spoke to Admiral Byrd in English with a Germanic or perhaps Nordic accent. Their technology was far beyond anything known at the time.

They also had a message for the outside world that they entrusted to Admiral Byrd.

Admiral Byrd returned with message and his report to Washington D.C. where his diary was seized and he was ordered to never repeat the story.

The only substantial evidence for any of this is that Admiral Byrd really did command

the huge exploratory mission.

He never did talk about it.

Whatever unusual events that might have happened on that mission weren’t disclosed by the United States Navy. Admiral Byrd’s reputed, or altogether mythical Diary, says nothing about Hyperborea, but the Diary story does has echoes of similar stories that were about Hyperborea.

So many stories. So little evidence.

By K. L. Shipley

Website: https://www.eclecticessays.com