Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

Apollon and Artemis 495
Boreas,' the word bora, 'mountain,' having wholly dropped out of
use. Hence—he inferred— neither the true (modern) derivation
nor the false (ancient) derivation can explain the fact that the
Hyperboreans were so early located to the north of the Rhipai. This
must be due to the primitive astronomical belief that the sun dis-
appeared at night behind a huge mountain in the north. In 1916
Miss G. H. Macurdy' wrote: 'Helios-Paean- Apollo was the Sun
god worshipped with Artemis Basileia in Paeonia-Pieria, and the
Hyperborean legend connects this worship with the cult of Apollo
and Artemis beyond the Bora.' Miss Macurdy drew attention to the
fact that the via Egnatia, which ran from Dyrrhachion through
Makedonia and Thrace to Byzantion'-, passed close to Mount Bora,
and she suggested ' that the same gift of poetic imagination to which
we owe the myth of the sisters of Phaethon, transformed into poplars
and dropping tears of amber at the place which appears to have been
an entrepot for amber in ancient days, has also developed this
legend of a holy race of men living beyond the Bora, on the North-
Western track that led to the night home of the Sun god.' In 1917
Miss Harrison^ proposed to combine Kiessling's explanation with
that of Miss Macurdy: 'The bora of myth gets contaminated
with the Bora of fact.' Lastly, in 1920 Miss Macurdy* accepted
this combination, but demurred to S. Casson's view' that 'The
Hyperboreans as a nucleus of myths and travellers' tales belong
essentially to the Far East of antiquity,' their 'celestial calm' being
perhaps 'some faint echo from civilised China''.'
^ Miss G. H. Macurdy 'The Hyperboreans' in the Class. Rev. 1916 xxx. 180— 183.
- See E. Oberhummer in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. v. 1988 ff.
^ Miss J. E. Harrison in The Years Work in Class. Stud, igij p. 96 f.
•* Miss G. H. Macurdy ' The Hyperboreans again, Abaris, and Helixoia' in the Class.
Rev. 1920 xxxiv. 137 ff.
5 S. Casson ' The Hyperboreans ' in the Class. Rev. 1920 xxxiv. i ff. On the suggested
connexion with China see M. Mayer in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 2829 and E. H. Minns
Scythians and Greeks Cambridge 19 13 p. 113 f-, also H. A. Giles Adveisaria Sinica i.
I ff. Shanghai 1905, ix. 298 f. Shanghai 1911.
" The views summarised in this paragraph are, of course, incompatible with that
advocated by my friend Dr Farnell in his Ctilts of Gk. States iv. 102 f. :
' The brilliant
explanation given by Ahrens of the meaning of the name \sc, ' Hyperboreans '] throws
light on the darkness : he notes the name of the Macedonian month 'Tirep^epeTaws, the
last month of the year, and therefore falling probably in midsummer and about the time
of the harvest, derivable also immediately from no other word than inrep^epir-qs ; he
notes also the North Greek equation of ^ and (p, and concludes that the form 'T-n-ep^dpeLoi
is merely a lengthening, due to mistaken popular etymology of 'Twip^opoi, which equals
'TTT^p^opoi, a possible variant of 'TTrepcpeperou, a name for the sacred ministrants who
carry the cereal offerings from one community to another, and whom Herodotus calls
nep(pep€fs. This deduction has won some acceptance, and is by far the most interesting
contribution made by philology to the solution of a problem of Greek religion.'
The explanation put forward by H. L. Ahrens in the Rhein. Miis. 1S62 xvii. 340 ff.