herodotus

Carystians are those who bring them to Tenos, and the Tenians toDelos. Thus they say that these sacred offerings come to Delos; but atfirst, they say, the Hyperboreans sent two maidens bearing the sacredofferings, whose names, say the Delians, were Hyperoche and Laodike,and with them for their protection the Hyperboreans sent five men oftheir nation to attend them, those namely who are now called/Perphereës/ and have great honours paid to them in Delos. Sincehowever the Hyperboreans found that those who were sent away did notreturn back, they were troubled to think that it would always befallthem to send out and not to receive back; and so they bore theofferings to the borders of their land bound up in wheat straw, andlaid a charge upon their neighbours, bidding them send these forwardfrom themselves to another nation. These things then, they say, cometo Delos being thus sent forward; and I know of my own knowledge thata thing is done which has resemblance to these offerings, namely thatthe women of Thrace and Paionia, when they sacrifice to Artemis "theQueen," do not make their offerings without wheat straw. 34. These Iknow do as I have said; and for those maidens from the Hyperboreans,who died in Delos, both the girls and the boys of the Delians cut offtheir hair: the former before marriage cut off a lock and having woundit round a spindle lay it upon the tomb (now the tomb is on the lefthand as one goes into the temple of Artemis, and over it grows anolive-tree), and all the boys of the Delians wind some of their hairabout a green shoot of some tree, and they also place it upon thetomb. 35. The maidens, I say, have this honour paid them by thedwellers in Delos: and the same people say that Arge and Opis also,being maidens, came to Delos, passing from the Hyperboreans by thesame nations which have been mentioned, even before Hyperoche andLaodike. These last, they say, came bearing for Eileithuia the tributewhich they had laid upon themselves for the speedy birth,[37] but Argeand Opis came with the divinities themselves, and other honours havebeen assigned to them by the people of Delos: for the women, they say,collect for them, naming them by their names in the hymn which Olen aman of Lykia composed in their honour; and both the natives of theother islands and the Ionians have learnt from them to sing hymnsnaming Opis and Arge and collecting:--now this Olen came from Lukiaand composed also the other ancient hymns which are sung in Delos:--and moreover they say that when the thighs of the victim are consumedupon the altar, the ashes of them are used to cast upon the grave ofOpis and Arge. Now their grave is behind the temple of Artemis, turnedtowards the East, close to the banqueting hall of the Keïeans.36. Let this suffice which has been said of the Hyperboreans; for thetale of Abaris, who is reported to have been a Hyperborean, I do nottell, namely[37a] how he carried the arrow about all over the earth,eating no food. If however there are any Hyperboreans, it follows that