PART 1 - Ch.V.3
(The temple of the Hyperboreans
in Leuce island)
V. 3.
The Hyperboreans in Apollinic legends.
In Hecateus Abderitas’
narrations we are presented with different accounts from the prehistoric
geography and ethnography of
Among these, the most important are
the ones regarding the ethnic individuality and the abodes of the Hyperboreans in those times, and finally, the geographic
notion of Okeanos, and what it meant in
those primitive times of history.
The geography of ancient Egyptian
and Greek theology doesn’t correspond any more to the geography of the post –
Trojan epoch. A long series of prehistoric tribes and populations, which had
still left a faint echo of their existence in the poems of Homer and Hesiodus, disappeared afterwards from the annals of the
world.
The same happened with the old
geographic names. A great part of the prehistoric localities were later
mistaken for the historic ones, others remained obscured and a mythical veil
spread above them, while others still migrated from the Danube and the Euxine Pontos, northwards to
under the Arctic pole, westwards to the Atlantic Ocean and southwards past the
sources of the Nile, although these were unknown in the Greco-Roman epoch.
In this geographic confusion, that
started even since Homer’s times, then was inherited and transmitted from
authors to authors, our task to pinpoint and re-establish the geographic truth
regarding such remote times, is not at all easy.
The Hyperboreans’ country, especially in that epoch, when
their religion had started to have a decisive influence on Greek life, was,
according to what the most important authors tell us, on the northern parts of
the
According to Pindar (6th century bc), the most erudite poet of
Greek antiquity, the Hyperboreans were the inhabitants of the banks of the Istru, or the
Apollo, the great and popular god of
antiquity, whose priests, prophets, exorcists and pilgrims roved along the
roads which led from the Hyperboreans to Delos, their
hymns echoing in all the temples, at all the sacrifices and on all the sacred
ways; this beloved and powerful (Homer,
Hymn. in Apoll. V.1-3) god of the ancient world,
Pindar tells us (Olymp.
VIII,46; Olymp. III, 14-17), had returned to his country from the Istru,
in other words to the Hyperboreans, after building
the walls of
A memory of the dwellings of the Hyperboreans, situated on the northern parts of the
The first dwellings of the Hyperboreans in prehistoric times were, according to the
most important writers of antiquity, on the northern parts of the
But which was the ethnic origin and
character of the civilization of this memorable people from the prehistoric
antiquity?
According to the traditions and
historic data which we possess, the Hyperboreans, who figure in the holy legends of Apollo,
appear as a branch of the great and
powerful Pelasgian nation.
Their pastoral and agricultural
occupations, their social and religious institutions, are identical with those of
the other Pelasgian tribes from the lands of Greece,
Asia Minor and the Italic peninsula. The Hyperborean
shepherds, Pausanias
tells us, referring to those who, together with their flocks, had reached the
southern parts of the Pindus, have founded the Oracle
of Delphi, which in the beginning had surely quite a modest character, conform
to their pastoral life (lib. X. 5.7).
Apart from shepherding, their agriculture also flourished. Each year
they sent to Delos gifts of fruit and of their first wheat harvest. The
religious custom of the Hyperboreans to sacrifice to
Apollo from their first harvest (frugum primitiae) had a Latin character (Festus, Ad v. Sacrima; Ovid, Metam.
X. 433; Tibullus,
I. Eleg. V. 24).
The Hyperboreans had a state, political and religious organisation. Their constitution was theocratic. Boreazii, or Boreas’ descendants,
were at the head of the political government, and at the same time they were
the great priests of Apollo.
The Hyperboreans
are considered by the Greek authors as a people with very pure mores, and with
feelings of justice superior, for that epoch, to those of anybody else. Mela (III. c.5)
calls the Hyperboreans “cultores
justissimi”, and Hellanic calls them “people who
practice justice” (Fragmenta Hist.
grace. I. 58. fragm. 96).
The Hyperboreans
present in everything the character of ancient Latin mores and beliefs. They
are kind and hospitable, religious, superstitious, loving predictions (oracles)
and exorcisms. They play the flutes, the bagpipes and the “cobzas”,
during the religious ceremonies honoring their gods (they also have a college of the “cobza” players for religious ceremonies, which corresponds to collegium tibicinum of
the Romans – Mommsen,
Rom.Gesch. I. 1856. p.159). The tunes they play are
sweet and harmonious. At the hecatombs or feasts thrown in Apollo’s honor, they
sing continuously, with pleasant voices, praises to the god (Pindar, Pyth. X. 30).
And during the great holly days of
this god (starting with the spring equinox to the middle of the month of May),
they dance the “hora” until late at night (Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. I, 1856,
p.159). They are wealthy and lead a happy life. They cultivate also the
sciences, especially theology, philosophy and poetry. They send to Greece their
most cultured representatives.
In the genealogy of the prehistoric
peoples, the Hyperboreans are shown as a Pelasgian branch. Their proto-father is Hyperboreos,
son of Pelasg,
the powerful king and patriarch of the entire Pelasgian
nation (Pindar’s scholiast, Olymp.III.28 (Fragmenta Hist. graec.II,p.387)
But not only their national
character is Latin, but their gods bear Latin archaic names: Aplu (Alb) [1], Latona (or Leta). Still Latin are the names
of the prophets Olen and Abaris, to which
we can also add Orpheus. Finally,
the remains of the language we are left with from them, perpheres (gift bearers), Nereu (Negru, TN - black), Helixoea, or the island of the blessed, are also Latin.
[1. Apollo, an archaic divinity of the Lelegi (Pelasgian
tribe) was called by them, and also by the Thessalians,
Aplun (Tomaschek, Die alten Thraker, II. 48). The
Etruscans called him Aplu
and Apulu
(Wissowa, Pauly’s Real-Encyclopadie ad. V. Apollo). Regarding the etymology of
this name, the words of Festus are
important: we say album…the Sabines said alpum.
Romanians call the time between Easter and the Sunday of Toma “saptamana alba”, or “saptamana
Albilor
“(TN – the white week, or the week
of the white ones) (Conv. Lit. XXI, p.355) and it has to be noted that the
holly days of Apollo with the Hyperboreans, started
at the same time of the year.
An archaic Romanian legend of the Apollinic cycle.
We hear from the village of Floresti, in the county of Dolj, the following legend:
A king had a daughter, as beautiful as “the white world” (TN – lumea alba). One could look at the sun, but not at
her face. A dragon kidnapped the girl, while she strolled through the woods,
put her on his horse, flew with her far away and sank into a deep and wide sea, where there were some beautiful islands,
covered with short and thick grass. The kidnapped girl fell pregnant by the
dragon, whose palace was in the sea.
When close to giving birth, the dragon was killed by Fat – Frumos
(TN– the Handsome Youth) and the girl found herself and also the palace, on the
beautiful island of the sea. Here on
the island she gave birth to two children so beautiful, it seemed they had gold on them. Once, when the children
had grown a little, they crawled away from their mother, who had fallen asleep.
A servant of the king (the girl’s father), who was grazing the cattle near the
sea shore, saw the two kids playing in the sand with some golden apples. “The sun stayed in his way, looking at them, and the moon also”.
The servant told the king about seeing those children, so the king went to see
them himself, and was astonished by their beauty. Then, getting close and
touching them with his hand, one became white with fright and the other black.
The white one was called Albul, and the black one Negrul. The white one, while
hold in the kings’ arms, jumped up and burst out (this legend, told by the
teacher G.Scantea,
who collected it from an old peasant, continues only about the second son,
called Negru).
When examining the mythical essence of this legend, we see that it
presents in its entirety the character of the Apollinic
legends. In Romanian tradition, Albul, the beautiful
and golden child (Apollo), appears as the son of a maritime divinity (Neptune), and the most archaic Pelasgian legend says the same.
Aristotle writes that Greek antiquity knew four gods by the name of Apollo, or in
other words, there were four legends about the genealogy of the solar god. The first Apollo, says he, was the son of Neptune and Minerva, the
second was the son of Corybas of Crete, the third was
Jupiter’s son and the fourth, or Apollo of Arcadia, was the son of Silen, and the Arcadians called him “the shepherd god” (Fragm. Hist. graec.
II. p.190).
According to Apollodorus
(Bibl. I. 7. 4), the first two sons of Neptune were called Opleus and Nereus. It’s beyond any doubt
that the older form of these two names was Aplus and Nierus, meaning Albul and Negrul, exactly
as in the Romanian legend. So, the Romanian legend, according to which Albul appears like the son of a maritime divinity, belongs
to the oldest cycle of Apollinic legends. In the
Romanian legend, exactly as in the genealogy communicated by Apollodorus, dominates the
dualistic principle, with two opposite characters: one of the two legendary
figures representing the light (Albul), and the other
the dark (Negrul)].
The Hyperborean religion was Apollinic par excellence. Apollo, as a divinity of the Sun,
was a lot closer to the needs of the Pelasgians’ life
than any other god. Apollo, tells us Hecateus Abderitas, is venerated by them more than any other god. On
the other hand, the entire character of the Apollinic
religion, as it is manifested in Greece, depict the Pelasgian
life and beliefs. Apollo of Delos, Delphi, Athens and the lands of Troy, is
neither a Greek god, nor Egyptian, but a divinity with national Pelasgian legends, dogmas and rites.
Apollo is venerated especially in Pelasgian lands, in Thessaly, Phocis,
Beotia, Attica, Arcadia, Crete and the lands of Troy.
He is the god who protects the flocks and the shepherds.
On the plains of Thessaly, Apollo
guards the cattle herds of king Admet of Pherae (Apollodorus, Bibl. I. 9.15, III. 10.4), while in the
mountains of Troy he serves as a shepherd for king Laomedon,
Priam’s father (Iliad, XXI, 441-44). Together with
Neptune he builds the walls of Pelasgian Troy (Iliad.
VII. 452, XXI, 515), and helps king Alcatous to build
the Pelasgian citadel of Megara
(Pausanias,
lib.I. 42.2). He fights alongside the Pelasgians against their enemies. He urges the Trojans to
fight the Greeks and wishes the victory to be theirs (Homer, Iliad, IV, 507; VII. 21; Ovid, Trist. II.el.2.5). He often helps
Aeneas or Hector in battle. And, when the latter hero goes to the battle field
to fight against the Greeks, he takes this solemn vow in front of the Trojans
and the enemy army: that if Apollo gave him glory, to kill whomever will come
out to fight him, he would bring his opponent’s weapons inside blessed Ilium, and will hang them as trophies in the temple of
Apollo (Iliad, VII.51). And during this same war, Apollo directs Paris’ arrow
on Achilles and kills him (Arctinus in Aethiopida / Homer, Carmina,
Ed.Didot, p.583).
Apollo appears as the protecting god
of the Pelasgians even when fate seems to persecute
them wherever they turn, and part of them are forced to leave their old abodes
in the Balkan peninsula. The Pelasgians, writes Macrobius
(Saturn, I.7), chased from their dwellings from every side, gathered all at Dodona and consulted the oracle, in which part of the world
should they settle; and the oracle told them to go to the country consecrated
to Saturn, and there to offer tithes to Apollo, etc.
Apollo is for Pelasgians
the god of light, physical and spiritual; the god of shepherding, of
agriculture, of health, of wars, of citadels and of divination (Calchas, Cassandra, Helenus and
the Sybils had the gift of divination from Apollo).
As a physical type, he is of eternal
beauty and youth. The archaic Apollo is shown on old Greek sculptures and
paintings, with the curled locks and beautiful Pelasgian
long hair, exactly as Romanian shepherds and peasants, from near the Retezat Mountains, wear even today. That's why Homer (Hymn. in Apoll.
V.134) gives him also the epithet “achersechomes” (intonsus). And our Romanian folk songs tell us also that the sun has radiant locks (ballad
communicated from the village Resvad, Dambovita district).
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