Ursa Major. Dr. Johnson was so called by Boswell’s father (1709-1784).
My father’s opinion of Dr. Johnson may be conjectured from the name he afterwards gave him, which was “Ursa Major;” but it is not true, as has been reported, that it was in consequence of my saying that he was a constellation of genius and literature.--Boswell (1791).
Ursel (Zedekias), the imprisoned rival of the Emperor Alexius Comnēnus of Greece.--Sir W. Scott, Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).
Ur´sula, mother of Elsie, and wife of Gottlieb [Got.leeb], a cottage farmer, of Bavaria.--Hartmann von der Aue, Poor Henry (twelfth century); Longfellow Golden Legend (1851).
Ursula, a gentlewoman, attending on Hero.--Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing (1600).
Ursula, a silly old duenna, vain of her saraband dancing; though not fair yet fat and fully forty. Don Diego leaves Leonora under her charge, but Leander soon finds that a little flattery and a few gold pieces will put the dragon to sleep, and leave him free of the garden of his Hesperidês.--I. Bickerstaff, The Padlock (1768).
Ursula (Sister), a disguise assumed at St. Bride’s, by the Lady Margaret de Hautlieu.--Sir W. Scott, Castle Dangerous (time, Henry I.).
Ursula (Saint), daughter of Dianotus, king of Cornwall (brother and successor of Caradoc, king of Cornwall). She was asked in marriage by Conan [Meriadoc] of Armorica, or Little Britain. Going to France with her maidens, the princess was driven by adverse winds to Cologne, where she and “her 11,000 virgins” were martyred by the Huns and Picts (October 21, 237). Visitors to Cologne are still shown piles of skulls and bones heaped in the wall, faced with glass, which the verger asserts to be the relics of the martyred virgins; but, like Iphis, they must have changed their sex since death for most undoubtedly many of the bones are those of men and boys.--See Geoffrey, British History, v. 15, 16.
A calendar in the Freisingen Codex notices them as “SS. XI. M. VIRGINUM” i.e., “eleven holy virgin martyrs;” but, by making the “M” into a Roman figure equal 1000, we have XIM=11,000; so iiic=300.
Ursula is the Swabian ursul or hörsel (“the moon”), and, if this solution is accepted, then the “virgins who bore her company” are the stars. Ursul is the Scandinavian Hulda.