Calendric Aspects of Myths and Cults Involving Apollo’s Visit to Hyperborea

A study of the myths and cultic realities involving Apollo’s visit to Hyperborea demonstrates that many of them incorporate certain calendric information of different degrees of precision. Apollo’s movements set within a Hyperborean framework appear to have mainly been of a seasonal character and in this respect ultimately conditioned by the annual motion of the sun. However, this does not necessitate an outright assimilation of Apollo to the physical sun; the correspondences between the deity’s voyages to the far north and the movements of the celestial body were rather derived from the explicit seasonality of the rites at Delphi, Delos and elsewhere.