Nut-Brown Maid.—Reliques, Percy. The maid who was wooed by the “banished man.” The “banished man” described to her the hardships she would have to undergo if she married him; but finding that she accounted these hardships as nothing compared with his love, he revealed himself to be an earl’s son, with large hereditary estates in Westmoreland, and married her.
O
Obermann (ō-ber-män´).—The impersonation of high moral worth without talent, and the tortures endured by the consciousness of this defect. This name was given to the hero and imaginary author of a work of the same name by Etienne Pivert de Senancourt, a French writer.
Oberon (ō´be-ron).—King of the fairies, whose wife was Titania. Shakespeare introduces both Oberon and Titania in his Midsummer Night’s Dream. He and Titania, his queen, are fabled to have lived in India, and to have crossed the seas to northern Europe to dance by the light of the moon.
Oberon the Fay.—A humpty dwarf only three feet high, but of angelic face, lord and king of Mommur.
Odyssey (od´i-si).—Homer’s epic poem recording the adventures of Odysseus (Ulysses) in his voyage home from Troy. The poem opens in the island of Calypso, with a complaint against Neptune and Calypso for preventing the return of Odysseus to Ithaca. Telemachos, the son of Odysseus, starts in search of his father, accompanied by Pallas in the guise of Mentor. He goes to Pylos to consult old Nestor, and is sent by him to Sparta, where he is told by Menelaus that Odysseus is detained in the island of Calypso. In the meantime, Odysseus leaves the island, and, being shipwrecked, is cast on the shore of Phæacia. After twenty years’ absence Odysseus returns to his home. Penelope is tormented by suitors. To excuse herself, Penelope tells her suitors he only shall be her husband who can bend Odysseus’ bow. None can do so but the stranger, who bends it with ease. Odysseus is recognized by his wife, and the false suitors are all slain, and peace is restored to Ithaca.
Œdipus (ed´i-pus) Coloneus [(kō-lō-nē´us); or, Œdipus at Colonus (kō-lō´nus)].—A tragedy of Sophocles, which was not exhibited till four years after his death, and was said to be the last he wrote. In it Œdipus, driven from Thebes by Creon, with his daughters, Antigone and Ismene, seeks asylum with Theseus at Athens, and there obtains pardon from the gods, and peace.
Œdipus Tyrannus (ti-ran´us).—A tragedy by Sophocles, of uncertain date, “placed by the scholiasts, and by most modern critics, at the very summit of Greek tragic art.”
Ogier (ō-zhyā´) the Dane.—One of the paladins of the Charlemagne epoch. Also made the hero of an ancient French romance, and the subject of a ballad whose story is probably a contribution from the stores of Norman tradition, Holger, or Olger, Danske, being the national hero of Denmark. He figures in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.
O’Groat.—A name often alluded to in early English parables or sayings coming from the legend of John O’Groat’s House. This ancient building was supposed to stand on the most northerly point in Great Britain. John of Groat and his brothers were originally from Holland. According to tradition, the house was of an octagonal shape, being one room with eight windows and eight doors, to admit eight members of the family, the heads of eight different branches of it, to prevent their quarrels for precedence at table, which, on a previous occasion, had well-nigh proved fatal.