The Hyperboreans

The name of the mythology country of Hyperborea derives from its location; Hyper (beyond) the North Wind (boreas). Our descriptions of them come from the works of Herodotus, Apollodorus and Pausanias. They are described in some accounts as living in a utopia, people who could live for 1,000 years, living without strife over property, in total peace with their otherwise warlike neighbors. As well as the descriptions, other sources speculate about the location of the country. Apollo is said to have lived with them during the winter months.
They are also described as providing Herakles with the first olives, which he introduced to Greece.
To the left is a selection from a 17th century map, viewing the globe from the top, placing Hyperborea at the North Pole.

In his 1895 book, The Anti-Christ, Nietzsche opens the first chapter with "Let us face ourselves. We are Hyperboreans; we know very well how far off we live." This follows a preface in which he addresses anyone who can understand the book as “the most rare of men”. Nietzsche elaborates that he and his followers are inaccessible to the modern man, that his ideals and happiness are separated from modern man by barriers as strong as the extremes which separated the ancients from the mythological society.

The band Tangerine Dream, which plays electronic music and had an influence on the New Age movement in music, titled one of their albums "Hyperborea". The album was made in 1983 You can listen to the titular song here.

If you look at the album cover, it is a golden disc over the bleak winter landscape. It is safe to say that this image shows the visitation of Apollo to the lands of the North.

The tracks on the album are “No Man’s Land”, “Hyperborea”, “Cinnamon Road” and “Sphinx Lightning”. Tangerine Dream has been playing since 1967, and this album is considered the last of the band’s “Virgin Years”.

Clark Ashton Smith wrote a series of books which take place in a prehistoric land called Hyperborea, located in a tropical Greenland threatened by gods, monsters and an oncoming Ice Age. These books were published from the 1930s to 50s, and were adopted into H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. These stories do not paint the picture of a happy society as described by the myth, but a society in constant turmoil due to the deities which regularly visit the humans.

There is a Finnish folk music group called Hyperborea, which has won several awards at music festivals and has toured around Europe. They play traditional Finnish folk music as well as music from French and French Canadian sources. The myth of a happy, free country deep in the north clearly resonates with the band and their style of music. You can listen to their music on their Myspace page, here.

The U.S. Library of Congress’ system classifies many languages spoken by people living in Arctic regions as “Hyperborean”. This classification is used on languages used from Greenland to Siberia, some of which are not linguistically related enough to each other to be considered a family.