Many of these fabulous localities are to be found in Homer and Hesiod, and the other Greek poets and logographers,—Erytheia, the garden of the Hesperides, the garden of Phœbus,[590] to which Boreas transported the Attic maiden Orithyia, the delicious country of the Hyperboreans, the Elysian plain,[591] the fleeting island of Æolus, Thrinakia, the country of the Æthiopians, the Læstrygones, the Kyklôpes, the Lotophagi, the Sirens, the Cimmerians and the Gorgons,[592] etc. These are places which (to use the expression of Pindar respecting the Hyperboreans) you cannot approach either by sea or by land:[593] the wings of the poet alone can carry you thither. They were not introduced into the Greek mind by incorrect geographical reports, but, on the contrary, had their origin in the legend, and passed from thence into the realities of geography,[594] which they contributed much to pervert and confuse. For the navigator or emigrant, starting with an unsuspicious faith in their real existence, looked out for them in his distant voyages, and constantly fancied that he had seen or heard of them, so as to be able to identify their exact situation. The most contradictory accounts indeed, as might be expected, were often given respecting the latitude and longitude of such fanciful spots, but this did not put an end to the general belief in their real existence. [590] Sophokl. ap. Strabo. vii. p. 295.— Ὑπέρ τε πόντον πάντ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἔσχατα χθονὸς, Νυκτός τε πηγὰς οὐρανοῦ τ᾽ ἀναπτυχὰς, Φοίβου τε παλαιὸν κῆπον. [591] Odyss. iv. 562. The Islands of the Blessed, in Hesiod, are near the ocean (Opp. Di. 169). [592] Hesiod, Theogon. 275-290. Homer, Iliad, i. 423. Odyss. i. 23; ix 86-206; x 4-83; xii. 135. Mimnerm. Fragm. 13, Schneidewin. [593] Pindar, Pyth. x. 29.— Ναυσὶ δ᾽ οὔτε πεζὸς ἰὼν ἂν εὕροις Ἐς Ὑπερβορέων ἀγῶνα θαυματὰν ὁδόν. Παρ᾽ οἷς ποτε Περσεὺς ἐδαίσατο λαγετὰς, etc. Hesiod, and the old epic poem called the Epigoni, both mentioned the Hyperboreans (Herod. iv. 32-34). [594] This idea is well stated and sustained by Völcker (Mythische Geographie der Griechen und Römer, cap. i. p. 11), and by Nitzsch in his Comments on the Odyssey—Introduct. Remarks to b. ix. p. xii.-xxxiii. The twelfth and thirteenth chapters of the History of Orchomenos, by O. Müller, are also full of good remarks on the geography of the Argonautic voyage (pp. 274-299).