Elea’zar, a famous mathematician, who cast out devils by tying to the nose of the possessed a mystical ring, which the demon no sooner smelled than he abandoned the victim.  He performed before the Emperor Vespasian; and to prove that something came out of the possessed, he commanded the demon in making off to upset a pitcher of water, which it did.

I imagine if Eleazar’s ring had been put under their noses, we should have seen devils issue with their breath, so loud were these disputants.—­ Lesage, Gil Blas, v. 12 (1724).

ELECTOR (The Great), Frederick William of Brandenburg (1620-1688).

ELEIN, wife of King Ban of Benwick (Brittany), and mother of Sir Launcelot and Sir Lionell. (See ELAIN.)—­Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, i. 60 (1470)

ELEVEN THOUSAND VIRGINS (The), the virgins who followed St. Ur’sula in her flight towards Rome.  They were all massacred at Cologne by a party of Huns, and even to the present hour “their bones” are shown lining the whole interior of the Church of Ste. Ursula.

A calendar in the Freisingen codex notices them as “SS.  M. XL VIRGINUM,” this is, eleven virgin martyrs; but “M” (martyrs) being taken for 1000, we get 11,000.  It is furthermore remarkable that the number of names known of these virgins is eleven; (1) Ursula, (2) Sencia, (3) Gregoria, (4) Pinnosa, (5) Martha, (6) Saula, (7) Brittola, (8) Saturnina, (9) Rabacia or Sabatia, (10) Saturia or Saturnia, and (11) Palladia.

ELFENREIGEN [el.f’n-ri.gn] (4 syl.) or Alpleich, that weird music with which Bunting, the pied piper of Hamelin, led forth the rats into the river Weser, and the children into a cave in the mountain Koppenberg.  The song of the sirens is so called.

EL’FETA, wife of Cambuscan’, king of Tartary.

EL’FLIDA or AETHELFLAEDA, daughter of King Alfred, and wife of Aethelred, chief of that part of Mercia not claimed by the Danes.  She was a woman of enormous energy and masculine mind.  At the death of her husband, she ruled over Mercia, and proceeded to fortify city after city, as Bridgenorth, Tamworth, Warwick, Hertford, Witham, and so on.  Then attacking the Danes, she drove them from place to place, and kept them from molesting her.

  When Elflida up-grew ... 
  The puissant Danish powers victoriously pursued,
  And resolutely here thro’ their thick squadrons hewed
  Her way into the north.

  Drayton, Polyolbion, xii. (1613).

ELFRIDE (Swancourt).  Blue-eyed girl, betrothed first to Stephen Smith; afterwards she loves passionately Henry Knight.  He leaves her in pique, and she weds Lord Luxellian, dying soon after the marriage.—­Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873).