In ancient Greek mythology, the “Hyperboreoi” were a people who lived in a northern paradise of perpetual sunshine beyond the reaches of the god of the north wind. Their name located them within the Greek world; it combined the prefix “hyper-,” meaning “above,” and “Boreas,” the Greek name for the north wind. Despite their location in an otherwise frigid part of the world, the Hyperboreans were believed to inhabit a sunny, temperate, and divinely-blessed land. In many versions of the story, they lived north of the Riphean Mountains, which shielded them from the effects of the cold North Wind. The oldest myths portray them as the favorites of Apollo, and some ancient Greek writers regarded the Hyperboreans as the mythical founders of Apollo’s shrines at Delos and Delphi.
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