Editing Hyperborea (section)

===Hyperboreans in Delos===
[[File:Typus Orbis Terrarum.jpg|thumb|upright=1.55|On this 1570 map, Hyperborea is shown as an Arctic continent and described as {{lang|la|"Terra Septemtrionalis Incognita"}} (Unknown Northern Land). Notice the similarities in the continent to that of Mercator's map above.]]

Alone among the [[Twelve Olympians]], the Greeks venerated [[Apollo (god)|Apollo]] among the Hyperboreans, and the god was thought to spend his winters there amongst them.<ref>{{cite journal |first=J. Rendel |last=Harris |author-link=J. Rendel Harris |year=1925 |title=Apollo at the Back of the North Wind |journal=[[Journal of Hellenic Studies]] |volume=45 |issue=2 |pages=229–242 |jstor=625047 |doi=10.2307/625047|s2cid=163854302 }}</ref> 

According to [[Herodotus]], offerings from the Hyperboreans came to Scythia packed with [[straw]], and they were passed from tribe to tribe until they arrived at [[Dodona]] and from them to other Greek peoples until they to came to Apollo's temple on [[Delos]]. He said they used this method because the first time the gifts were brought by two maidens, [[Hyperoche]] and [[Laodice (Greek myth)|Laodice]], with an escort of five men, but none of them returned. To prevent this, the Hyperboreans began to bring the gifts to their borders and ask their neighbours to deliver them to the next country and so on until they arrived to Delos.<ref name="Herodotus_4">{{cite book |author=Herodotus |translator-first=A. D. |translator-last=Godley |date=1921 |title=Histories |volume=II |series=Loeb Classical Library |location=London |publisher=William Heinemann |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.183371|access-date=17 May 2017 |at=Book IV, 33–34}}</ref>

Herodotus also details that two other virgin maidens, [[Arge]] and [[Upis (mythology)|Opis]], had come from Hyperborea to Delos before, as a tribute to the goddess [[Eileithyia|Ilithyia]] for ease of child-bearing, accompanied by the gods themselves. The maidens received honours in Delos, where the women collected gifts from them and sang hymns to them.<ref name="Herodotus_4" />