YENISEISK (8), a town of East Siberia, on the Yenisei, in a province of the name, and a centre of trade in it.

YEOMANRY, name given to a cavalry volunteer force the members of which provide their own horses and uniforms, with a small allowance from the Government, which is increased when called out.

YEOMEN, a name given in England to a class of freeholders next in rank to the gentry, and to certain functionaries in royal households.

YEOMEN OF THE GUARD, a body of old soldiers of soldierly presence, employed on ceremonial occasions in conjunction with the gentlemen-at-arms, as the bodyguard of the British sovereign; they were constituted in 1485, and number besides officers 100 men; the Beef-eaters, as they are called, are the wardens of the Tower, and are a different corps.

YEOVIL (9), a town in Somerset, 4 m.  S. of Bristol, is in the centre of an agricultural district, and the staple industry is glove-making.

YETHOLM, a village of Roxburghshire, 7 m.  SE. of Kelso; consists of two parts, Town Yetholm and Kirk Yetholm, the latter of which has for two centuries been the head-quarters of the gypsies in Scotland.

YEZD (40), a town in an oasis, surrounded by a desert, in the centre of Persia, 230 m.  SE. of Ispahan; a place of commercial importance; carries on miscellaneous manufactures.

YEZIDEES, a small nation bordering on the Euphrates, whose religion is a mixture of devil worship and Ideas derived from the Magi, the Mohammedans, and the Christians.

YEZO or YESSO, the northernmost of the four large islands of Japan, is about as large as Ireland; is traversed from N. to S. by rugged mountains, several of them active volcanoes; is rich in minerals, and particularly coal; its rivers swarm with salmon, but the climate is severe, and it is only partially settled.

YGGDRASIL.  See IGGDRASIL.

YIDDISH, a kind of mongrel language spoken by foreign Jews in
England.

YMIR, a giant in the Norse mythology, slain by the gods, and out of whose carcass they constructed the world, his blood making the sea, his flesh the land, his bones the rocks, his eyebrows Asgard, the dwelling-place of the gods, his skull the vault of the firmament, and his brains the clouds.

YNIOL, an earl of Arthurian legend, the father of Enid, who was ousted from his earldom by his nephew the “Sparrow-Hawk,” but who, when overthrown, was compelled to restore it to him.

YOGA, in the Hindu philosophy a state of soul, emancipation from this life and of union with the divine, achieved by a life of asceticism and devout meditation; or the system of instruction or discipline by which it is achieved.

YOGIN, among the Hindus one who has achieved his yoga, over whom nothing perishable has any longer power, for whom the laws of nature no longer exist, who is emancipated from this life, so that death even will add nothing to his bliss, it being his final deliverance or Nirvana, as the Buddhists would say.