Talk:Hyperborean maidens

Sources?

I'm not convinced that there is any real existence of the "Nymphai Hyperboreioi" in sources other than Theoi.com. Smith doesn't use this term, he just calls each a Hyperborean maiden. At a minimum, the page shouldn't be at this title. – Michael Aurel (talk) 20:16, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Moved to "Hyperborean maidens (mythology)", which doesn't really fix the issue of multiple figures being grouped together here, but at least does away with the misnomer. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:22, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Use of Herodotus

Generally, throughout the page I have used Herodotus as the 'main' source - when another source has disagreed, I have tended to agree more so with Herodotus. Does anyone with more experience using these sources have an opinion on whether this is correct? JammyDodger357 (talk) 10:45, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Hyperborean maidens/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: JammyDodger357 (talk · contribs) 06:52, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Amir Ghandi (talk · contribs) 08:17, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @JammyDodger357:. I see this is your first GA nomination. I unfortunately have to quick-fail this article. It violates several of the GA criteria: it has entire sentences without a source, it uses so many quotes that it borders on copyright violation, and it has an overreliance on primary sources. I suggest you study the Wikipedia:Good article criteria or even Wikipedia:Manual of Style, improve the article and renominate it another time. Best wishes. Amir Ghandi (talk) 08:17, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, grammar, and understandability): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check.

   a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Abiding by Reviewers comments.

Looking at the reviewer's comments (above), I think that right now it can be surmised into 3 needed improvements.

- Less Quotes

- Less focus on primary sources

- More inline citations.

Does anyone have a specific way of improving this: The only section in which quotes are used is the Hyperborean Offering section, and the reasoning I had for using quotes was as that was simply comparing the paths each primary source thought the Hyperborean Offerings took. There was no way (that I can/could see) to avoid very closely paraphrasing the routes, besides simply quoting it, which I thought would be better in regard to copyright (even though they are ancient sources so copyright is not present)

Similarly with the primary sources - there is not a large volume of work that I can find around this topic that is reliable, and what is currently in the references is everything I can find. This means that primary sources must be a large part of the knowledge about the Hyperborean Maidens, so does anyone have any ideas on how to decrease their use while retaining the information they provide? - Jammy 06:33, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi JammyDodger357. There's a good chance the GA reviewer didn't watchlist the article, in which case they'll only see your message if they're pinged. (I'll ping them now: Amir Ghandi.) The first two points you've listed – about quotes and the use of primary sources – are inherent difficulties with writing quality articles about the ancient Greek world. The paragraph at WP:GRLIT is probably the best summation of how editors feel it is and isn't appropriate to use ancient Greek literary sources on Wikipedia. WP:PRIMARY, the general policy which governs all primary sourcing, is also well worth reading. In essence, the bulk of an article should generally be cited to modern scholarship, because ancient sources often require interpretation and synthesis, things we aren't allowed to do ourselves (per WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, and other policies). It's acceptable to cite primary sources on their own if they are being used for simple descriptions of their contents, as long as these descriptions do not constitute a large chunk of the article. It's also perfectly fine to cite primary sources in places where a secondary source that verifies the information is already present; this is convenient for readers who want to read those primary sources. (Compare, for example, the way primary sources are cited at Amalthea (mythology).) Regarding the third point you've listed, the second of the GA criteria generally requires a citation to be provided no later than the end of the paragraph.

I haven't looked over the article in detail yet, and I don't have the time to do so right at the moment, but if you like I'd be happy to provide an informal review at some point in the near future before you renominate the page for GA status. Cheers, Michael Aurel (talk) 14:17, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Hey @JammyDodger357, apologies again for the quickfailing your article. I agree with @Michael Aurel: on usage of primary sources. They must be used tastefully and sparingly. They should not be the pillar on which the whole article stands. Now I confess that Greek mythological studies are not my forte, but I just did some google searching and came across several secondary sources that are not currently included in the article. Maybe you can use these? This sources, as far as I have seen, mention and allude to the primary sources like Herodotus, so you can use it to balance the primary source (jsut be careful to not fall into WP:SYNTH):

1. Cosmography and the Idea of Hyperborea in Ancient Greece

2. Hyperboreans: Myth and History in Celtic-Hellenic Contacts

3. Délos et l’écriture

4. Quelle était la nature des relations entre Délos et le pays des Hyperboréens ?

Feel free to call on me for any needed assistance. I would be very happy to help. Amir Ghandi (talk) 15:25, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you both for your invaluable help here. I am new here so not particularly comfortable with the various regulations, so my many thanks for providing some relevant ones for me to read/ study. I had not heard of the ban on editorial synthesis, so I must thank you from making me aware of it so early in my journey on Wikipedia.

If I may ask, generally how focused should an article stay: as you may expect/assume the Hyperborean Maidens are very closely related with Hyperborea as a whole. A small introductory section on what the Greeks believed about Hyperborea / the Hyperboreans as a whole may provide some appropriate context for the article, but this information if already part of the Hyperborea article, and a section on these would not be specifically about the Hyperborean maidens - would you recommend adding this or not?

The above is a problem I have been having a decent bit - as Hyperborea is quite a mainstream idea in classical study, while the Hyperborean maidens are a lot more niche, a large majority of secondary sources I can find contribute to Hyperborea more generally, without any specific information relating to the Hyperborean maidens.

Anyway, again thanks to the both of you for your help. I will now read through everything you have attached and then rewrite the article to decrease the reliance on primary sources.

Many thanks - Jammy 06:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

@JammyDodger357: WP:SUMMARY, WP:DUE, and WP:PROPORTION are probably the guidelines most relevant to your question. Ultimately, the exact amount of detail a page should contain is determined by editorial judgement. Looking at featured articles might help: they've passed Wikipedia's most rigorous review process, and so should you give an idea of how much detailed is expected. Short background sections are sometimes appropriate. A good general approach is to assume that the reader doesn't have any background in the subject. If the average educated adult wouldn't be familiar with a concept or term, providing a brief explanation is recommended (per WP:MTAU and MOS:NOFORCELINK, the latter of which in particular cautions against overrelying on links). If explanations related to Hyperborea and the Hyperboreans, for example, expand beyond a few sentences, then splitting them into a separate section might be structurally wise; if they don't, then they're probably fine as part of another section.

In addition to the sources Amir Ghandi has supplied above, the following might be helpful:

• Walter Burkert, in his Greek Religion, p. 406, cites the following sources when he mentions the Hyperborean maidens: Kothe, H., "Apollons ethnokulturelle Herkunft", in Klio, Vol. 52, 1970 doi:10.1524/klio.1970.52.52.205; Bianucci, G. B., "La via Iperborea", in RFIC, Vol. 101, 1973; Tréheux, J., "La réalité historique des offrandes hyperboréennes", in Studies Presented to David Moore Robinson on His Seventieth Birthday, Volume II, 1953, OCLC 427342596; as well as a Sale (cited in the article) and a page from N. G. L. Hammond's Epirus.
• A good place to look when you're trying to avoid overusing direct citations to primary sources is commentaries on those ancient sources. I notice, for example, that Susan A. Stephens's Callimachus: The Hymns briefly discusses the maidens in a few places. David Asheri, Alan Lloyd, and Aldo Corcella's A Commentary on Herodotus Books I–IV, pp. 602 ff., appears to contain some detailed analysis of the relevant passages of that text. I imagine there are other useful commentaries out there.
• Brill's New Pauly has entries on at least some of the individual maidens. The old, sometimes outdated, and extremely comprehensive RE will also have such entries.
• Victor J. Matthews' Antimachus of Colophon: Text and Commentary, pp. 337–338, seems to briefly discuss the Hyperborean maidens in its commentary on a passage of Stephanus of Byzantium.

I'm happy to send you copies of sources that are accessible via WP:TWL, and you can ask at WP:REX for sources you're unable to track down. Note that the GA criteria don't require an article's sourcing to represent a comprehensive survey of the relevant scholarship (they only ask that the sources are reliable), whereas the FA critera do. Cheers, Michael Aurel (talk) 11:30, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi, @Michael Aurel. Thank you very much for your help - I have recently tried several new techniques for finding sources which have been thankfully successful and so I have a decent amount new sources that I am just reading through and vetting. Most of these sources are however in French, and some in German, so it is quite time-consuming to go through, but I can by just using translate and similar methods. Thanks for the links to the appropriate pages - I will read through those now. Again thank you for this invaluable help.

- Jammy 13:59, 29 June 2026 (UTC)