Beyond the North Wind

The Fall and Rise of the Mystic North

By: Christopher McIntosh, Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson - foreword

Narrated by: Simon Vance

"The North" is simultaneously a location, a direction, and a mystical concept. Although this concept has ancient roots in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales, it continues to resonate today within modern culture. McIntosh leads listeners, chapter by chapter, through the magical and spiritual history of the North, as well as its modern manifestations, as documented through physical records, such as runestones and megaliths, but also through mythology and lore.

This mythic conception of a unique, powerful, and mysterious Northern civilization was known to the Greeks as "Hyberborea" - the "Land Beyond the North Wind" - which they considered to be the true origin place of their god, Apollo, bringer of civilization. Through the Greeks, this concept of the mythic North would spread throughout Western civilization.

In addition, McIntosh discusses Russian Hyperboreanism, which he describes as among "the most influential of the new religions and quasi-religious movements that have sprung up in Russia since the fall of Communism" and which is currently almost unknown in the West.

©2019 Christopher McIntosh (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

not a waste of time

I found it very entertaining and glimpses of possible human migration and evolution that should be investigated more. also very romantic and fun even if some of the ideas mentioned are on the edge of reasonable sanity

Intriguing Read

A thought provoking book that I can’t stop thinking and wondering about. My Swedish roots are perhaps influential in my enjoyment. Packed with lots of information and details that will require me to re-read it. I’ll be exploring more Nordic literature as this book has opened up new roads to explore.

heathens, history, occult, and...pop culture?

McIntosh does a killer job exploring "The Mystic North!"
Folklore, myths, legends, facts, geography, culture, spiritualilty, from past to present day- he does a really great job summing up the birth, death and revival of all things "viking"

Interesting, Needs More Careful Review of East Asian Elements

While I have no real background in Hyperborea or Norse Paganism, what I paid attention to while knitting seemed to be at least logically presented and intriguing. However, the chapter on the Vikings as Samurai needs further review.

Should one decide to compare the Vikings with the samurai, why not further compare how the two came to rise as a warrior class that grew to include not only warfare, but also things like philosophy and poetry? Additionally, if one is going to compare death poetry, I would think that using a comparative example from when the samurai were an actual class in Japan would make a more compelling argument than an anachronistic use of the poetry of Kuribayashi Tadamichi, general of the Imperial Army at Iwo Jima during World War 2. There were no samurai in the 1900’s, the class being more or less eradicated by the Meiji Restoration in the late 1860’s and the Japanese government’s subsequent legislation regarding swords, among other things. While some samurai survived the change to become one of the significantly economically powerful zaibatsu groups, most did not. Any person looking at a Japanese history textbook (and not an American movie by a similar name) can easily find that the person consider by many to be the last samurai is Saigo Takamori. He died in 1877.

My review for this story is three stars due to my lack of background in the main topics of this book and the fact that it was overall quite enjoyable. However, it seems incredibly short-sighted and ill-advised to be so, if not careless, then unconcerned with the specifics of comparisons to other cultures in the East. This is particularly true when the central argument of a book focuses on the spread of people, language, and culture and the similarities that linger.

I really like how they broke down the history

I would say the only thing I didn't like about the book is that it was to short for me.