HYPERBOREANS, a mythical people intimately con nected with the worship of Apollo, especially but not exclu sively that at Delos ('TsrEpi3opeoc, `TirEpf30pecoc). Their names do not occur in Homer, but Herodo tus (iv. 32) states that they were mentioned in Hesiod and in the Epigoni, an epic of the Theban cycle. According to Herodotus, two maidens, Opis and Arge, and later two others, Hyperoche and Laodice, escorted by five men, called by the Delians Perpherees, were sent by the Hyperboreans with certain offerings to Delos. Finding that their messengers did not return, the Hyperboreans adopted the plan of wrapping the offerings in wheat-straw and requested their neighbours to hand them on to the next nation, and so on until they finally reached Delos. The likeliest explanation of their name is still that of H. L. Ahrens. They are "those who carry over" (Oop- = eop- in Mace donian and other Northern speeches, and may be thus connected with cOpcc). The name then refers to the bringing of the offerings; virEpOopeoc and are probably the same. It is, of course, likely enough that an Apollo-worshipping people or clan really lived in the north ; the offerings must have come from somewhere.
Under the influence of a derivation from (3opias, the home of the Hyperboreans was placed in a paradisiacal region beyond the north wind. The duration of their life was i,000 years, but if any desired to shorten it, he decked himself with garlands and threw himself from a rock into the sea. The close connection of the Hyperboreans with the cult of Apollo may be seen by com paring the Hyperborean myths, the characters of which by their names mostly recall Apollo or Artemis (Agyieus, Opis, Hecaergos, Loxo), with the ceremonial of the Apolline worship.
See O. Crusius in Roscher's Lexikon, O. Schroder in Archiv fur R.eligionswissenscha f t 0904), viii. 69 ; W. Mannhardt, Wald-und Feldkulte (19o5) ; L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States (1907), iv. ioo.