Chapter XVII: Part 17

Hejaz is divided longitudinally by the Tehama range of mountains into two zones, a narrow littoral and a broader upland. This range attains its greatest height in Jebel Shar, the Mount Seir of scripture, overlooking the Midian coast, which probably reaches 7000 ft., and Jebel Radhwa a little N.E. of Yambu rising to 6000 ft. It is broken through by several valleys which carry off the drainage of the inland zone; the principal of these is the Wadi Hamd, the main source of which is on the Harra east of Khaibar. Its northern tributary the Wadi Jizil drains the Harrat el Awerid and a southern branch comes from the neighbourhood of Medina. Farther south the Wadi es Safra cuts through the mountains and affords the principal access to the valley of Medina from Yambu or Jidda. None of the Hejaz Wadis has a perennial stream, but they are liable to heavy floods after the winter rains, and thick groves of date-palms and occasional settlements are met with along their courses wherever permanent springs are found. The northern part of Hejaz contains but few inhabited sites. Muwela, Damgha and El Wijh are small ports used by coasting craft. The last named was formerly an important station on the Egyptian pilgrim route, and in ancient days was a Roman settlement, and the port of the Nabataean towns of el Hajr 150 m. to the east. Inland the sandstone desert of El Hisma reaches from the Syrian border at Ma'an to Jebel Awerid, where the volcanic tracts known as _harra_ begin, and extend southwards along the western borders of the Nejd plateau as far as the latitude of Mecca. East of Jebel Awerid lies the oasis of Tema, identified with the Biblical Teman, which belongs to the Shammar tribe; its fertility depends on the famous well, known as Bir el Hudaj. Farther south and on the main pilgrim route is El 'Ala, the principal settlement of El Hajr, the Egra of Ptolemy, to whom it was known as an oasis town on the gold and frankincense road. Higher up the same valley are the rock-cut tombs of Medina Salih, similar to those at Petra and shown by the Nabataean coins and inscriptions discovered there by Doughty and Huber to date from the beginning of the Christian era. To the south-east again is the oasis of Khaibar, with some 2500 inhabitants, chiefly negroes, the remnants of an earlier slave population. The citadel, known as the Kasr el Yahudi, preserves the tradition of its former Jewish ownership. With these exceptions there are no settled villages between Ma'an and Medina, the stations on the pilgrim road being merely small fortified posts with reservoirs, at intervals of 30 or 40 m., which are kept up by the Turkish government for the protection of the yearly caravan.

The southern part of the province is more favoured by nature. Medina is a city of 25,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, situated in a broad plain between the coast range and the low hills across which lies the road to Nejd. Its altitude above the sea is about 2500 ft. It is well supplied with water and is surrounded by gardens and plantations; barley and wheat are grown, but the staple produce, as in all the cultivated districts of Hejaz, is dates, of which 100 different sorts are said to grow. Yambu' has a certain importance as the port for Medina. The route follows for part of the way along the Wadi es Safra, which contains several small settlements with abundant date groves; from Badr Hunen, the last of these, the route usually taken from Medina to Mecca runs near the coast, passing villages with some cultivation at each stage. The eastern route though more direct is less used; it passes through a barren country described by Burton as a succession of low plains and basins surrounded by rolling hills and intersected by torrent beds; the predominant formation is basalt. Suwerikiya and Es Safina are the only villages of importance on this route.

Mecca and the holy places in its vicinity are described in a separate article; it is about 48 m. from the port of Jidda, the most important trade centre of the Hejaz province. The great majority of pilgrims for Mecca arrive by sea at Jidda. Their transport and the supply of their wants is therefore the chief business of the place; in 1904 the number was 66,500, and the imports amounted in value to L1,400,000.

From the hot lowland in which Mecca is situated the country rises steeply up to the Taif plateau, some 6000 ft. above sea-level, a district resembling in climate and physical character the highlands of Asir and Yemen. Jebel el Kura at the northern edge of the plateau is a fertile well-watered district, producing wheat and barley and fruit. Taif, a day's journey farther south, lies in a sandy plain, surrounded by low mountains. The houses, though small, are well built of stone; the gardens for which it is celebrated lie at a distance of a mile or more to the S.W. at the foot of the mountains.

Hejaz, together with the other provinces of Arabia which on the overthrow of the Bagdad Caliphate in 1258 had fallen under Egyptian domination, became by the conquest of Egypt in 1517 a dependency of the Ottoman empire. Beyond assuming the title of Caliph, neither Salim I. nor his successors interfered much in the government, which remained in the hands of the sharifs of Mecca until the religious upheaval which culminated at the beginning of the 19th century in the pillage of the holy cities by the Wahhabi fanatics. Mehemet Ali, viceroy of Egypt, was entrusted by the sultan with the task of establishing order, and after several arduous campaigns the Wahhabis were routed and their capital Deraiya in Nejd taken by Ibrahim Pasha in 1817. Hejaz remained in Egyptian occupation until 1845, when its administration was taken over directly by Constantinople, and it was constituted a vilayet under a vali or governor-general. The population is estimated at 300,000, about half of which are inhabitants of the towns and the remainder Bedouin, leading a nomad or pastoral life. The principal tribes are the Sherarat, Beni Atiya and Huwetat in the north; the Juhena between Yambu' and Medina, and the various sections of the Harb throughout the centre and south; the Ateba also touch the Mecca border on the south-east. All these tribes receive surra or money payments of large amount from the Turkish government to ensure the safe conduct of the annual pilgrimage, otherwise they are practically independent of the Turkish administration, which is limited to the large towns and garrisons. The troops occupying these latter belong to the 16th (Hejaz) division of the Turkish army.

The Hejaz railway.

The difficulties of communication with his Arabian provinces, and of relieving or reinforcing the garrisons there, induced the sultan Abdul Hamid in 1900 to undertake the construction of a railway directly connecting the Hejaz cities with Damascus without the necessity of leaving Turkish territory at any point, as hitherto required by the Suez Canal. Actual construction was begun in May 1901 and on the 1st of September 1904 the section Damascus-Ma'an (285 m.) was officially opened. The line has a narrow gauge of 1.05 metre = 41 in., the same gauge as that of the Damascus-Beirut line; it has a ruling gradient of 1 in 50 and follows generally the pilgrim track, through a desert country presenting no serious engineering difficulties. The graver difficulties due to the scarcity of water, and the lack of fuel, supplies and labour were successfully overcome; in 1906 the line was completed to El Akhdar, 470 m. from Damascus and 350 from Medina, In time to be used by the pilgrim caravan of that year; and the section to Medina was opened in 1908. Its military value was shown in the previous year, when it conveyed 28 battalions from Damascus to Ma'an, from which station the troops marched to Akaba for embarkation _en route_ to Hodeda. The length of the line from Damascus to Medina is approximately 820 m., and from Medina to Mecca 280 m.; the highest level attained is about 4000 ft. at Dar el Hamra in the section Ma'an-Medina.

AUTHORITIES.--J. L. Burckhardt, _Travels in Arabia_ (London, 1829);
'Ali Bey, _Travels_ (London, 1816); R. F. Burton, _Pilgrimage to
Medinah and Mecca_ (1893); _Land of Midian_ (London, 1879); J. S.
Hurgronje, _Mekka_ (Hague, 1888); C. M. Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_
(Cambridge, 1888); Auler Pasha, _Die Hedschasbahn_ (Gotha, 1906).
(R. A. W.)

HEJIRA,[1] or HEGIRA (Arab. _hijra_, flight, departure from one's country, from _hajara_, to go away), the name of the Mahommedan era. It dates from 622, the year in which Mahomet "fled" from Mecca to Medina to escape the persecution of his kinsmen of the Koreish tribe. The years of this era are distinguished by the initials "A.H." (_anno hegirae_). The Mahommedan year is a lunar one, about 11 days shorter than the Christian; allowance must be made for this in translating _Hegira_ dates into Christian dates; thus A.H. 1321 corresponds roughly to A.D. 1903. The actual date of the "flight" is fixed as 8 Rabia I., i.e. 20th of September 622, by the tradition that Mahomet arrived at Kufa on the Hebrew Day of Atonement. Although Mahomet himself appears to have dated events by his flight, it was not till seventeen years later that the actual era was systematized by Omar, the second caliph (see CALIPHATE), as beginning from the 1st day of Muharram (the first lunar month of the year) which in that year (639) corresponded to July 16. The term _hejira_ is also applied in its more general sense to other "emigrations" of the faithful, e.g. to that to Abyssinia (see MAHOMET), and to that of Mahomet's followers to Medina before the capture of Mecca. These latter are known as _Muhajirun_.

For the problems of Moslem chronology and comparative tables of dates
see (beside the articles CALENDAR, CHRONOLOGY and MAHOMET),
Wustenfeld, _Vergleichungstabellen der muhammedanischen und
christlichen Zeitrechnung_ (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1903); Mas Latrie,
_Tresor de chronologie_ (Paris, 1889); Durbaneh, _Universal Calendar_
(Cairo, 1896); Winckler, _Altorientalische Forschungen_, ii. 326-350;
D. Nielson, _Die altarabische Mondreligion_ (Strassburg, 1904);
Hughes, _Dictionary of Islam_, s.v. "Hijrah."

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The _i_ in the second syllable is short.

HEL, or _Hela_, in Scandinavian mythology, the goddess of the dead. She was a child of Loki and the giantess Angurboda, and dwelt beneath the roots of the sacred ash, Yggdrasil. She was given dominion over the nine worlds of Helheim. In early myth all the dead went to her: in later legend only those who died of old age or sickness, and she then became synonymous with suffering and horror. Her dwelling was _Elvidnir_ (dark clouds), her dish _Hungr_ (hunger), her knife _Sullt_ (starvation), her servants _Ganglate_ (tardy feet), her bed _Kor_ (sickness), and her bed-curtains _Blikiandabol_ (splendid misery).

HELDENBUCH, DAS, the title under which a large body of German epic poetry of the 13th century has come down to us. The subjects of the individual poems are taken from national German sagas which originated in the epoch of the Migrations (_Volkerwanderung_), although doubtless here, as in all purely popular sagas, motives borrowed from the forces and phenomena of nature were, in course of time, woven into events originally historical. While the saga of the Nibelungs crystallized in the 13th century into the _Nibelungenlied_ (q.v.), and the Low German Hilde-saga into the epic of _Gudrun_ (q.v.) the poems of the _Heldenbuch_, in the more restricted use of that term, belong almost exclusively to two cycles, (1) the Ostrogothic saga of Ermanrich, Dietrich von Bern (i.e. Dietrich of Verona, Theodorich the Great) and Etzel (Attila), and (2) the cycle of Hugdietrich, Wolfdietrich and Ortnit, which like the _Nibelungen_ saga, was probably of Franconian origin. The romances of the _Heldenbuch_ are of varying poetic value; only occasionally do they rise to the height of the two chief epics, the _Nibelungenlied_ and _Gudrun_. Dietrich von Bern, the central figure of the first and more important group, was the ideal type of German medieval hero, and, under more favourable literary conditions, he might have become the centre of an epic more nationally German than even the _Nibelungenlied_ itself. Of the romances of this group, the chief are _Biterolf und Dietlieb_, evidently the work of an Austrian poet, who introduced many elements from the court epic of chivalry into a milieu and amongst characters familiar to us from the _Nibelungenlied_. _Der Rosengarten_ tells of the conflicts which took place round Kriemhild's "rose garden" in Worms--conflicts from which Dietrich always emerges victor, even when he is confronted by Siegfried himself. In _Laurin und der kleine Rosengarten_, the Heldensage is mingled with elements of popular fairy-lore; it deals with the adventures of Dietrich and his henchman Witege with the wily dwarf Laurin, who watches over another rose garden, that of the Tyrol. Similar in character are the adventures of Dietrich with the giants Ecke (_Eckenlied_) and Sigenot, with the dwarf Goldemar, and the deeds of chivalry he performs for queen Virginal (_Dietrichs erste Ausfahrt_)--all of these romances being written in the fresh and popular tone characteristic of the wandering singers or _Spielleute_. Other elements of the Dietrich saga are represented by the poems _Alpharts Tod_, _Dietrichs Flucht_ and _Die Rabenschlacht_ ("Battle of Ravenna"). Of these, the first is much the finest poem of the entire cycle and worthy of a place beside the best popular poetry of the Middle High German epoch. Alphart, a young hero in Dietrich's army, goes out to fight single-handed with Witege and Heime, who had deserted to Ermanrich, and he falls, not in fair battle, but by the treachery of Witege whose life he had spared. The other two Dietrich epics belong to a later period, the end of the 13th century--the author being an Austrian, Heinrich der Vogler--and show only too plainly the decay that had by this time set in in Middle High German poetry.

The second cycle of sagas is represented by several long romances, all of them unmistakably "popular" in tone--conflicts with dragons, supernatural adventures, the wonderland of the East providing the chief features of interest. The epics of this group are _Ortnit_, _Hugdietrich_, _Wolfdietrich_, the latter with its pathetic episode of the unswerving loyalty of Wolfdietrich's vassal Duke Berchtung and his ten sons. Although many of the incidents and motives of this cycle are drawn from the best traditions of the _Heldensage_, its literary value is not very high.

This collection of popular romances was one of the first German books
to be printed. The date of the first edition is unknown, but the
second edition appeared in the year 1491 and was followed by later
reprints in 1509, 1545, 1560 and 1590. The last of these forms the
basis of the text edited by A. von Keller for the Stuttgart
_Literarische Verein_ in 1867. In 1472 the _Heldenbuch_ was adapted to
the popular tastes of the time by being remodelled in rough
_Knittelvers_ or doggerel; the author, or at least copyist, of the MS.
was a certain Kaspar von dor Roen, of Munnerstadt in Franconia. This
version was printed by F. von der Hagen and S. Primisser in their
_Heldenbuch_ (1820-1825). _Das Heldenbuch_, which F. von der Hagen
published in 2 vols, in 1855, was the first attempt to reproduce the
original text by collating the MSS. A critical edition, based not
merely on the oldest printed text--the only one which has any value
for this purpose, as the others are all copies of it--but also on the
MSS., was published in 5 vols. by O. Janicke, E. Martin, A. Amelung
and J. Zupitza at Berlin (1866-1873). A selection, edited by E.
Henrici, will be found in Kurschner's _Deutsche Nationalliteratur_,
vol. 7 (1887). Recent editions have appeared of _Der Rosengarten_ and
_Laurin_, by G. Holz (1893 and 1897). All the poems have been
translated into modern German by K. Simrock and others. See F. E.
Sandbach, _The Heroic Saga-Cycle of Dietrich of Bern_ (1906). The
literature of the _Heldensage_ is very extensive. See especially W.
Grimm, _Die deutsche Heldensage_ (3rd ed., 1889); L. Uhland,
"Geschichte der deutschen Poesie im Mittelalter," _Schriften_, vol. i.
(1866); O. L. Jiriczek, _Deutsche Heldensage_, vol. i. (1898); and
especially B. Symons, "Germanische Heldensage," in Paul's _Grundriss
der germanischen Philologie_ (2nd ed., 1898).

HELDER, a seaport town at the northern extremity of the province of North Holland, in the kingdom of Holland, 51 m. by rail N.N.W. of Amsterdam. Pop. (1900) 25,842. It is situated on the Marsdiep, the channel separating the island of Texel from the mainland, and the main entrance to the Zuider Zee, and besides being the terminus of the North Holland canal from Amsterdam, it is an important naval and military station. On the east side of the town, called the Nieuwe Diep, is situated the fine harbour, which formerly served, as Ymuiden now does, as the outer port of Amsterdam. In this neighbourhood are the naval wharves and magazines, wet and dry docks, and the naval cadet school of Holland, the name Willemsoord being given to the whole naval establishment. From Nieuwe Diep to Fort Erfprins on the west side of the town, a distance of about 5 m., stretches the great sea-dike which here takes the place of the dunes. This dike descends at an angle of 40 deg. for a distance of 200 ft. into the sea, and is composed of Norwegian granite and Belgian limestone, strengthened at intervals by projecting jetties of piles and fascines. A circle of forts and batteries defends the town and coast, and there is a permanent garrison of 7000 to 9000 men, while 30,000 men can be accommodated within the lines, and the province flooded from this point. Besides several churches and a synagogue, there are a town hall (1836), a hospital, an orphan asylum, the "palace" of the board of marine, a meteorological observatory, a zoological station and a lighthouse. The industries of the town are sustained by the garrison and marine establishments.

HELEN, or HELENA (Gr. [Greek: Elene]),in Greek mythology, daughter of Zeus by Leda (wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta), sister of Castor, Pollux and Clytaemnestra, and wife of Menelaus. Other accounts make her the daughter of Zeus and Nemesis, or of Oceanus and Tethys. She was the most beautiful woman in Greece, and indirectly the cause of the Trojan war. When a child she was carried off from Sparta by Theseus to Attica, but was recovered and taken back by her brothers. When she grew up, the most famous of the princes of Greece sought her hand in marriage, and her father's choice fell upon Menelaus. During her husband's absence she was induced by Paris, son of Priam, with the connivance of Aphrodite, to flee with him to Troy. After the death of Paris she married his brother Deiphobus, whom she is said to have betrayed into the hands of Menelaus at the capture of the city (_Aeneid_, vi. 517 ff.). Menelaus thereupon took her back, and they returned together to Sparta, where they lived happily till their death, and were buried at Therapnae in Laconia. According to another story, Helen survived her husband, and was driven out by her stepsons. She fled to Rhodes, where she was hanged on a tree by her former friend Polyxo, to avenge the loss of her husband Tlepolemus in the Trojan War (Pausanias iii. 19). After death, Helen was said to have married Achilles in his home in the island of Leuke. In another version, Paris, on his voyage to Troy with Helen, was driven ashore on the coast of Egypt, where King Proteus, upon learning the facts of the case, detained the real Helen in Egypt, while a phantom Helen was carried off to Troy. Menelaus on his way home was also driven by stress of winds to Egypt, where he found his wife and took her home (Herodotus ii. 112-120; Euripides, _Helena_). Helen was worshipped as the goddess of beauty at Therapnae in Laconia, where a festival was held in her honour. At Rhodes she was worshipped under the name of Dendritis (the tree goddess), where the inhabitants built a temple in her honour to expiate the crime of Polyxo. The Rhodian story probably contains a reference to the worship connected with her name (cf. Theocritus xviii. 48 [Greek: sebou m', Helenas phyton eimi]). She was the subject of a tragedy by Euripides and an epic by Colluthus. Originally, Helen was perhaps a goddess of light, a moon-goddess, who was gradually transformed into the beautiful heroine round whom the action of the _Iliad_ revolves. Like her brothers, the Dioscuri, she was a patron deity of sailors.

See E. Oswald, _The Legend of Fair Helen_ (1905); J. A. Symonds,
_Studies of the Greek Poets_, i. (1893); F. Decker, _Die griechische
Helena in Mythos und Epos_ (1894); Andrew Lang, _Helen of Troy_
(1883); P. Paris in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des
antiquites_; the exhaustive article by R. Engelmann in Roscher's
_Lexikon der Mythologie_; and O. Gruppe, _Griechische Mythologie_, i.
163, according to whom Helen originally represented, in the
Helenephoria (a mystic festival of Artemis, Iphigeneia or Tauropolos),
the sacred basket ([Greek: helene]) in which the holy objects were
carried; and hence, as the personification of the initiation ceremony,
she was connected with or identified with the moon, the first
appearance of which probably marked the beginning of the festivity.

HELENA, ST (c. 247-c. 327) the wife of the emperor Constantius I. Chlorus, and mother of Constantine the Great. She was a woman of humble origin, born probably at Drepanum, a town on the Gulf of Nicomedia, which Constantine named Helenopolis in her honour. Very little is known of her history. It is certain that, at an advanced age, she undertook a pilgrimage to Palestine, visited the holy places, and founded several churches. She was still living at the time of the murder of Crispus (326). Constantine had coins struck with the effigy of his mother. The name of Helena is intimately connected with the commonly received story of the discovery of the Cross. But the accounts which connect her with the discovery are much later than the date of the event. The Pilgrim of Bordeaux (333), Eusebius and Cyril of Jerusalem were unaware of this important episode in the life of the empress. It was only at the end of the 4th century and in the West that the legend appeared. The principal centre of the cult of St Helena in the West seems to be the abbey of Hautvilliers, near Reims, where since the 9th century they have claimed to be in possession of her body. In England legends arose representing her as the daughter of a prince of Britain. Following these Geoffrey of Monmouth makes her the daughter of Coel, the king who is supposed to have given his name to the town of Colchester. These legends have doubtless not been without influence on the cult of the saint in England, where a great number of churches are dedicated either to St Helena alone, or to St Cross and St Helena. Her festival is celebrated in the Latin Church on the 18th of August. The Greeks make no distinction between her festival and that of Constantine, the 21st of May.

See _Acta sanctorum_, Augusti iii. 548-580; Tixeront, _Les Origines de
l'eglise d'Edesse_ (Paris, 1888); F. Arnold-Forster, _Studies in
Church Dedications or England's Patron Saints_, i. 181-189, iii. 16,
365-366 (1899). (H. De.)

HELENA, a city and the county-seat of Phillips county, Arkansas, U.S.A., situated on and at the foot of Crowly's Ridge, about 150 ft. above sea-level, in the alluvial bottoms of the Mississippi river, about 65 m. by rail S.W. of Memphis, Tennessee. Pop. (1890) 5189, (1900) 5550, of whom 3400 were negroes; (1910) 8772. It is served by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley (Illinois Central), the St Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (Missouri Pacific), the Arkansas Midland, and the Missouri & North Arkansas railways. Built in part upon "made land," well protected by levees, and lying within the richest cotton-producing region of the south, the rich timber country of the St Francis river, and the Mississippi "bottom lands," Helena concentrates its economic interests in cotton-compressing and shipping, the manufacture of cotton-seed products, lumbering and wood-working. The city was founded about 1821, but so late as 1860 the population was only 800. During the Civil War the place was of considerable strategic importance. It was occupied in July 1862 by the Union forces, who strongly fortified it to guard their communications with the lower Mississippi; on the 4th of July 1863, when occupied by General Benjamin M. Prentiss (1819-1901) with 4500 men, it was attacked by a force of 9000 Confederates under General Theophilus H. Holmes (1804-1880), who hoped to raise the siege of Vicksburg or close the river to the Union forces. The attack was repulsed, with a loss to the Confederates of one-fifth their numbers, the Union loss being slight.

HELENA, a city and the county-seat of Lewis and Clark county, Montana, U.S.A., and the capital of the state, at the E. base of the main range of the Rocky Mountains, 80 m. N.E. of Butte, at an altitude of about 4000 ft. Pop. (1880) 3624; (1890) 13,834; (1900) 10,770, of whom 2793 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 12,515. It is served by the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railways. Helena is delightfully situated with Mt Helena as a background in the hollow of the Prickly Pear valley, a rich agricultural region surrounded by rolling hills and lofty mountains, and contains many fine buildings, including the state capitol, county court house, the Montana club house, high school, the cathedral of St Helena, a federal building, and the United States assay office. It is the seat of the Montana Wesleyan University (Methodist Episcopal), founded in 1890; St Aloysius College and St Vincent's Academy (Roman Catholic); and has a public library with about 35,000 volumes, the Montana state library with about 40,000 volumes, and the state law library with about 24,000 volumes. The city is the commercial and financial centre of the state (Butte being the mining centre), and is one of the richest cities in the United States in proportion to its population. It has large railway car-shops, extensive smelters and quartz crushers (at East Helena), and various manufacturing establishments; the value of the factory product in 1905 was $1,309,746, an increase of 68.7% over that of 1900. The surrounding country abounds in gold- and silver-bearing quartz deposits, and it is estimated that from the famous Last Chance Gulch alone, which runs across the city, more than $40,000,000 in gold has been taken. The street railway and the lighting system of the city are run by power generated at a plant and 40 ft. dam at Canyon Ferry, on the Missouri river, 18 m. E. of Helena. There is another great power plant at Hauser Plant, 20 m. N. of Helena. Three miles W. of the city is the Broadwater Natatorium with swimming pool, 300 ft. long and 100 ft. wide, the water for which is furnished by hot springs with a temperature at the source of 160 deg. Fort Harrison, a United States army post, is situated 3 m. W. of the city. Helena was established as a placer mining camp in 1864 upon the discovery of gold in Last Chance Gulch. The town was laid out in the same year, and after the organization of Montana Territory it was designated as the capital. Helena was burned down in 1869 and in 1874. It was chartered as a city in 1881.

HELENSBURGH, a municipal and police burgh and watering-place of Dumbartonshire, Scotland, on the N. shore of the Firth of Clyde, opposite Greenock, 24 m. N.W. of Glasgow by the North British railway. Pop. (1901) 8554. There is a station at Upper Helensburgh on the West Highland railway, and from the railway pier at Craigendoran there is steamer communication with Garelochhead, Dunoon and other pleasure resorts on the western coast. In 1776 the site began to be built upon, and in 1802 the town, named after Lady Helen, wife of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, the ground landlord, was erected into a burgh of barony, under a provost and council. The public buildings include the burgh hall, municipal buildings, Hermitage schools and two hospitals. On the esplanade stands an obelisk to Henry Bell, the pioneer of steam navigation, who died at Helensburgh in 1830.

HELENUS, in Greek legend, son of Priam and Hecuba, and twin-brother of Cassandra. He is said to have been originally called Scamandrius, and to have received the name of Helenus from a Thracian soothsayer who instructed him in the prophetic art. In the _Iliad_ he is described as the prince of augurs and a brave warrior; in the _Odyssey_ he is not mentioned at all. Various details concerning him are added by later writers. It is related that he and his sister fell asleep in the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus and that snakes came and cleansed their ears, whereby they obtained the gift of prophecy and were able to understand the language of birds. After the death of Paris, Helenus and his brother Deiphobus became rivals for the hand of Helen. Deiphobus was preferred, and Helenus withdrew in indignation to Mount Ida, where he was captured by the Greeks, whom he advised to build the wooden horse and carry off the Palladium. According to other accounts, having been made prisoner by a stratagem of Odysseus, he declared that Philoctetes must be fetched from Lemnos before Troy could be taken; or he surrendered to Diomedes and Odysseus in the temple of Apollo, whither he had fled in disgust at the sacrilegious murder of Achilles by Paris in the sanctuary. After the capture of Troy, he and his sister-in-law Andromache accompanied Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus) as captives to Epirus, where Helenus persuaded him to settle. After the death of Neoptolemus, Helenus married Andromache and became ruler of the country. He was the reputed founder of Buthrotum and Chaonia, named after a brother or companion whom he had accidentally slain while hunting. He was said to have been buried at Argos, where his tomb was shown. When Aeneas, in the course of his wanderings, reached Epirus, he was hospitably received by Helenus, who predicted his future destiny.

Homer, _Iliad_, vi. 76, vii. 44, xii. 94, xiii. 576; Sophocles,
_Philoctetes_, 604, who probably follows the _Little Iliad_ of
Lesches; Pausanias i. 11, ii. 23; Conon, _Narrationes_, 34; Dictys
Cretensis iv. 18; Virgil, _Aeneid_, iii. 294-490; Servius on _Aeneid_,
ii. 166, iii. 334.

HELGAUD, or HELGALDUS (d. c. 1048), French chronicler, was a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Fleury. Little else is known about him save that he was chaplain to the French king, Robert II. the Pious, whose life he wrote. This _Epitoma vitae Roberti regis_, which is probably part of a history of the abbey of Fleury, deals rather with the private than with the public life of the king, and its value is not great either from the literary or from the historical point of view. The only existing manuscript is in the Vatican, and the _Epitoma_ has been printed by J. P. Migne in the _Patrologia Latina_, tome cxli. (Paris, 1844); and by M. Bouquet in the _Recueil des historiens des Gaules_, tome x. (Paris, 1760).

See _Histoire litteraire de la France_, tome vii. (Paris, 1865-1869);
and A. Molinier, _Les Sources de l'histoire de France_, tome ii.
(Paris, 1902).

HELGESEN, POVL,[1] Danish humanist, was born at Varberg in Halland about 1480, of a Danish father and a Swedish mother. Helgesen was educated first at the Carmelite monastery of his native place and afterwards at another monastery at Elsinore, where he devoted himself to humanistic studies and adopted Erasmus as his model. None had a keener eye for the abuses of the Church; long before the appearance of Luther, he denounced the ignorance and immorality of the clergy, and, as lector at the university of Copenhagen, gathered round him a band of young enthusiasts, the future leaders of the Danish Reformation. But Helgesen desired an orderly, methodical, rational reformation, and denounced Luther, whose ablest opponent in Denmark he subsequently became, as a hot-headed revolutionist. Christian II. was also an object of Helgesen's detestation, and so boldly did he oppose that monarch's measures that, to save his life, he had to flee to Jutland. Under Frederick I. (1523-1533) he returned to Copenhagen and resumed his chair at the university, becoming soon afterwards provincial of the Carmelite Order for Scandinavia. But like all moderate men in a time of crisis, Helgesen could gain the confidence of neither party, and was frequently attacked as bitterly by the Catholics as by the Protestants. From 1530 to 1533 he and the Protestant champion Hans Tausen exhausted the whole vocabulary of vituperation in their fruitless polemics. In October 1534, however, Helgesen issued an eirenicon in which he attempted to reconcile the two contending confessions. After that every trace of him is lost. For a long time he was unjustly regarded as a turn-coat, but he was too superior to the prejudices of his age to be understood by his contemporaries. His ideal was a moral internal reformation of the Church on a rational basis, conducted not by ill-informed fanatics, but by an enlightened and well-educated clergy; and from this standpoint he never diverged. Helgesen was indisputably the greatest master of style of his age in Denmark, and as a historian he also occupies a prominent position. He always endeavours to probe down to the very soul of things, though his passionate nature made it very difficult for him to be impartial. His chief works are _Danmark's Kongers Historie_ and _Skibby Kroniken_.

See Ludwig Schmitt, _Der Karmeliter Paulus Helia_ (Freiburg, 1893);
_Danmarks Riges Historie_ (Copenhagen, 1897-1905), vol. iii.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] He wrote his name Heliae or Eliae.

HELIACAL, relating to the sun ([Greek: helios]), a term applied in the ancient astronomy to the first rising of a star which could be seen after it emerged from the rays of the sun, or the last setting that could be seen before it was lost from sight by proximity to the sun.

HELIAND. The 9th-century poem on the Gospel history, to which its first editor, J. A. Schmeller, gave the appropriate name of _Heliand_ (the word used in the text for "Saviour," answering to the O. Eng. _haelend_ and the Ger. _Heiland_), is, with the fragments of a version of the story of Genesis believed to be by the same author, all that remains of the poetical literature of the old Saxons, i.e. the Saxons who continued in their original home. It contained when entire about 6000 lines, and portions of it are preserved in four MSS. The Cotton MS. in the British Museum, written probably late in the 10th century, is nearly complete, ending in the middle of the story of the journey to Emmaus. The Munich MS., formerly at Bamberg, begins at line 85, and has many lacunae, but continues the history down to the last verse of St Luke's Gospel, ending, however, in the middle of a sentence. A MS. discovered at Prague in 1881 contains lines 958-1106, and another, in the Vatican library, discovered by K. Zangemeister in 1894, contains lines 1279-1358. The poem is based, not directly on the New Testament, but on the pseudo-Tatian's harmony of the Gospels, and it shows acquaintance with the commentaries of Alcuin, Baeda and Hrabanus Maurus.

The questions relating to the _Heliand_ cannot be adequately discussed without considering also the poem on the history of Genesis, which, on the grounds of similarity in style and vocabulary, and for other reasons afterwards to be mentioned, may with some confidence be referred to the same author. A part of this poem, as is mentioned in the article CAEDMON, is extant only in an Old English translation. The portions that have been preserved in the original language are contained in the same Vatican MS. that includes the fragment of the _Heliand_ referred to above. In the one language or the other, there are in existence the following three fragments: (1) The passage which appears as lines 235-851 in the so-called "Caedmon's _Genesis_," on the revolt of the angels and the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve. Of this the part corresponding to lines 790-820 exists also in the original Old Saxon. (2) The story of Cain and Abel, in 124 lines. (3) The account of the destruction of Sodom, in 187 lines. The main source of the _Genesis_ is the Bible, but Professor E. Sievers has shown that considerable use was made of the two Latin poems by Alcimus Avitus, _De initio mundi_ and _De peccato originali_.

The two poems give evidence of genius and trained skill, though the poet was no doubt hampered by the necessity of not deviating too widely from the sacred originals. Within the limits imposed by the nature of his task, his treatment of his sources is remarkably free, the details unsuited for poetic handling being passed over, or, in some instances, boldly altered. In many passages his work gives the impression of being not so much an imitation of the ancient Germanic epic, as a genuine example of it, though concerned with the deeds of other heroes than those of Germanic tradition. In the _Heliand_ the Saviour and His Apostles are conceived as a king and his faithful warriors, and the use of the traditional epic phrases appears to be not, as with Cynewulf or the author of _Andreas_, a mere following of accepted models, but the spontaneous mode of expression of one accustomed to sing of heroic themes. The _Genesis_ fragments have less of the heroic tone, except in the splendid passage describing the rebellion of Satan and his host. It is noteworthy that the poet, like Milton, sees in Satan no mere personification of evil, but the fallen archangel, whose awful guilt could not obliterate all traces of his native majesty. Somewhat curiously, but very naturally, Enoch the son of Cain is confused with the Enoch who was translated to heaven--an error which the author of the Old English _Genesis_ avoids, though (according to the existing text) he confounds the names of Enoch and Enos.

Such external evidence as exists bearing on the origin of the _Heliand_ and the companion poem is contained in a Latin document printed by Flacius Illyricus in 1562. This is in two parts; the one in prose, entitled (perhaps only by Flacius himself) "_Praefatio ad librum antiquum in lingua Saxonica conscriptum_"; the other in verse, headed "_Versus de poeta et Interpreta hujus codicis_." The Praefatio begins by stating that the emperor Ludwig the Pious, desirous that his subjects should possess the word of God in their own tongue, commanded a certain Saxon, who was esteemed among his countrymen as an eminent poet, to translate poetically into the German language the Old and New Testaments. The poet willingly obeyed, all the more because he had previously received a divine command to undertake the task. He rendered into verse all the most important parts of the Bible with admirable skill, dividing his work into _vitteas_, a term which, the writer says, may be rendered by "_lectiones_" or "_sententias_." The Praefatio goes on to say that it was reported that the poet, till then knowing nothing of the art of poetry, had been admonished in a dream to turn into verse the precepts of the divine law, which he did with so much skill that his work surpasses in beauty all other German poetry (_ut cuncta Theudisca poemata suo vincat decore_). The _Versus_ practically reproduce in outline Baeda's account of Caedmon's dream, without mentioning the dream, but describing the poet as a herdsman, and adding that his poems, beginning with the creation, relate the history of the five ages of the world down to the coming of Christ.

The suspicion of some earlier scholars that the _Praefatio_ and the _Versus_ might be a modern forgery is refuted by the occurrence of the word _vitteas_, which is the Old Saxon _fittea_, corresponding to the Old English _fitt_, which means a "canto" of a poem. It is impossible that a scholar of the 16th century could have been acquainted with this word, and internal evidence shows clearly that both the prose and the verse are of early origin. The _Versus_, considered in themselves, might very well be supposed to relate to Caedmon; but the mention of the five ages of the world in the concluding lines is obviously due to recollection of the opening of the _Heliand_ (lines 46-47). It is therefore certain that the _Versus_, as well as the _Praefatio_, attribute to the author of the _Heliand_ a poetic rendering of the Old Testament. Their testimony, if accepted, confirms the ascription to him of the Genesis fragments, which is further supported by the fact that they occur in the same MS. with a portion of the _Heliand_. As the _Praefatio_ speaks of the emperor Ludwig in the present tense, the former part of it at least was probably written in his reign, i.e. not later than A.D. 840. The general opinion of scholars is that the latter part, which represents the poet as having received his vocation in a dream, is by a later hand, and that the sentences in the earlier part which refer to the dream are interpolations by this second author. The date of these additions, and of the _Versus_, is of no importance, as their statements are incredible. That the author of the _Heliand_ was, so to speak, another Caedmon--an unlearned man who turned into poetry what was read to him from the sacred writings--is impossible, because in many passages the text of the sources is so closely followed that it is clear that the poet wrote with the Latin books before him. On the other hand, there is no reason for rejecting the almost contemporary testimony of the first part of the _Praefatio_ that the author of the _Heliand_ had won renown as a poet before he undertook his great task at the emperor's command. It is certainly not impossible that a Christian Saxon, sufficiently educated to read Latin easily, may have chosen to follow the calling of a _scop_ or minstrel[1] instead of entering the priesthood or the cloister; and if such a person existed, it would be natural that he should be selected by the emperor to execute his design. As has been said above, the tone of many portions of the _Heliand_ is that of a man who was no mere imitator of the ancient epic, but who had himself been accustomed to sing of heroic themes.

The commentary on the gospel of Matthew by Hrabanus Maurus was finished about 821, which is therefore the superior limit of date for the composition of the _Heliand_. It is usually maintained that this work was written before the Old Testament poems. The arguments for this view are that the _Heliand_ contains no allusion to any foregoing poetical treatment of the antecedent history, and that the Genesis fragments exhibit a higher degree of poetic skill. This reasoning does not appear conclusive, and if it be set aside, the limit of date for the beginning of the work is carried back to A.D. 814, the year of the accession of Ludwig.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The first complete edition of the _Heliand_ was
published by J. A. Schmeller in 1830; the second volume, containing
the glossary and grammar, appeared in 1840. The standard edition is
that of E. Sievers (1877), in which the texts of the Cotton and Munich
MSS. are printed side by side. It is not provided with a glossary, but
contains an elaborate and most valuable analysis of the diction,
synonymy and syntactical features of the poem. Other useful editions
are those of M. Heyne (3rd ed., 1903), O. Behaghel (1882) and P. Piper
(1897, containing also the Genesis fragments). The fragments of the
_Heliand_ and the _Genesis_ contained in the Vatican MS. were edited
in 1894 by K. Zangemeister and W. Braune under the title _Bruchstucke
der altsachsischen Bibeldichtung_. Among the works treating of the
authorship, sources and place of origin of the poems, the most
important are the following: E. Windisch, _Der Heliand und seine
Quellen_ (1868); E. Sievers, _Der Heliand und die angelsachsische
Genesis_ (1875); R. Kogel, _Deutsche Literaturgeschichte_, Bd. i.
(1894) and _Die altsachsische Genesis_ (1895); R. Kogel and W.
Bruckner, "Althoch- und altniederdeutsche Literatur," in Paul's
_Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_, Bd. ii. (2nd ed., 1901),
which contains references to many other works; Hermann Collitz, _Zum
Dialekte des Heliand_ (1901). (H. Br.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The term _Volkssanger_, commonly used in German discussions of
this question, is misleading; the audience for heroic poetry was not
"the people" in the modern sense, but the nobles.

HELICON, a mountain range, of Boeotia in ancient Greece, celebrated in classical literature as the favourite haunt of the Muses, is situated between Lake Copais and the Gulf of Corinth. On the fertile eastern slopes stood a temple and grove sacred to the Muses, and adorned with beautiful statues, which, taken by Constantine the Great to beautify his new city, were consumed there by a fire in A.D. 404. Hard by were the famous fountains, Aganippe and Hippocrene, the latter fabled to have gushed from the earth at the tread of the winged horse Pegasus, whose favourite browsing place was there. At the neighbouring Ascra dwelt the poet Hesiod, a fact which probably enhanced the poetic fame of the region. Pausanias, who describes Helicon in his ninth book, asserts that it was the most fertile mountain in Greece, and that neither poisonous plant nor serpent was to be found on it, while many of its herbs possessed a miraculous healing virtue. The highest summit, the present Palaeovouni (old hill), rises to the height of about 5000 ft. Modern travellers, aided by ancient remains and inscriptions, and guided by the local descriptions of Pausanias, have succeeded in identifying many of the ancient classical spots, and the French excavators have discovered the temple of the Muses and a theatre.

See also Clarke, _Travels in Various Countries_ (vol. vii., 1818);
Dodwell, _Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece_ (1818); W.
M. Leake, _Travels in Northern Greece_ (vol. ii., 1835); J. G.
Frazer's edition of _Pausanias_, v. 150.

HELICON (Fr. _helicon, bombardon circulaire_; Ger. _Helikon_), the circular form of the B[flat] contrabass tuba used in military bands, worn round the body, with the enormous bell resting on the left shoulder and towering above the head of the performer. The pitch of the helicon is an octave below that of the euphonium. The idea of winding the long tube of the contrabass tuba and of wearing it round the shoulders was suggested by the ancient Roman buccina and cornu, represented in mosaics and on the sculptured reliefs surrounding Trajan's Column. The buccina and cornu[1] differed in the diameter of their respective bores, the former having the narrow, almost cylindrical bore and harmonic series of the trumpet and trombone, whereas the cornu, having a bore in the form of a wide cone, was the prototype of the bugle and tubas.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] For illustrations of the cornu see the altar of Julius Victor ex
Collegio, reproduced in Bartoli, Pict. Ant. p. 76; Bellori, _Pict.
antiq. crypt. rom._ p. 76, pl. viii.; in Daremberg and Saglio, _Dict.
des antiq. grecques et romaines_, under "Cornu," the buccina and
cornu have not been distinguished.

HELIGOLAND (Ger. _Helgoland_), an island of Germany, in the North Sea, lying off the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser, 28 m. from the nearest point in the mainland. Pop. (1900) 2307. From 1807 to 1890 a British possession, it was ceded in 1890 to Germany, and since 1892 has formed part of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein. It consists of two islets, the smaller, the Dunen-Insel, a quarter of a mile E. of the main, or Rock Island, connected until 1720, when it was severed by a violent irruption of the sea, with the other by a neck of land, and the main, or Rock Island. The latter is nearly triangular in shape and is surrounded by steep red cliffs, the only beach being the sandy spit near the south-east point, where the landing-stage is situated. The rocks composing the cliffs are worn into caves, and around the island are many fantastic arches and columns. The impression made by the red cliffs, fringed by a white beach and supporting the green Oberland, is commonly believed to have suggested the national colours, red, white and green, or, as the old Frisian rhyme goes:--

"Gron is dat Land,
Rood is de Kant,
Witt is de Sand,
Dat is de Flagg vun't hillige Land."

The lower town of Unterland, on the spit, and the upper town, or Oberland, situated on the cliff above, are connected by a wooden stair and a lift. There is a powerful lighthouse, and since its cession by Great Britain to Germany, the main island has been strongly fortified, the old English batteries being replaced by armoured turrets mounting guns of heavy calibre. Inside the Dunen-Insel the largest ships can ride safely at anchor, and take in coal and other supplies. The greatest length of the main island, which slopes somewhat from west to east, is just a mile, and the greatest breadth less than a third of a mile, its average height 198 ft., and the highest point, crowned by the church, with a conspicuous spire, 216 ft. The Dunen-Insel is a sand-bank protected by groines. It is only about 200 ft. above the sea at its highest point, but the drifting sands make the height rather variable. The sea-bathing establishment is situated here; a shelving beach of white sand presenting excellent facilities for bathing. Most of the houses are built of brick, but some are of wood. There are a theatre, a Kurhaus, and a number of hotels and restaurants. In 1892 a biological institute, with a marine museum and aquarium (1900) attached, was opened.

During the summer some 20,000 people visit the island for sea-bathing. German is the official language, though among themselves the natives speak a dialect of Frisian, barely intelligible to the other islands of the group. There is regular communication with Bremen and Hamburg.

The winters are stormy. May and the early part of June are wet and foggy, so that few visitors arrive before the middle of the latter month.

The generally accepted derivation of Heligoland (or Helgoland) from _Heiligeland_, i.e. "Holy Land," seems doubtful. According to northern mythology, Forseti, a son of Balder and Nanna, the god of justice, had a temple on the island, which was subsequently destroyed by St Ludger. This legend may have given rise to the derivation "Holy Land." The more probable etymology, however, is that of Hallaglun, or Halligland, i.e. "land of banks, which cover and uncover." Here Hertha, according to tradition, had her great temple, and hither came from the mainland the Angles to worship at her shrine. Here also lived King Radbod, a pagan, and on this isle St Willibrord in the 7th century first preached Christianity; and for its ownership, before and after that date, many sea-rovers have fought. Finally it became a fief of the dukes of Schleswig-Holstein, though often hypothecated for loans advanced to these princes by the free city of Hamburg. The island was a Danish possession in 1807, when the English seized and held it until it was formally ceded to them in 1814. In the picturesque old church there are still traces of a painted Dannebrog.

In 1890 the island was ceded to Germany, and in 1892 it was incorporated with Prussia, when it was provided that natives born before the year 1880 should be allowed to elect either for British or German nationality, and until 1901 no additional import duties were imposed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Von der Decken, _Philosophisch-historisch-geographische
Untersuchungen uber die Insel Helgoland, oder Heiligeland, und ihre
Bewohner_ (Hanover, 1826); Wiebel, _Die Insel Helgoland,
Untersuchungen uber deren Grosse in Vorzeit und Gegenwart vom
Standpunkte der Geschichte und Geologie_ (Hamburg, 1848); J. M.
Lappenberg, _Uber den ehemaligen Umfang und die alte Geschichte
Helgolands_ (Hamburg, 1831); F. Otker, _Helgoland. Schilderungen und
Erorterungen_ (Berlin, 1855); E. Hallier, _Helgoland, Nordseestudien_
(Hamburg, 1893); A. W. F. Moller, _Rechtsgeschichte der Insel
Helgoland_ (Weimar, 1904); W. G. Black, _Heligoland and the Islands of
the North Sea_ (Glasgow, 1888); E. Lindermann, _Die Nordseeinsel
Helgoland in topographischer, geschichtlicher, sanitarer Beziehung_
(Berlin, 1889); and Tittel, _Die naturlichen Veranderungen Helgolands_
(Leipzig, 1894).

HELIOCENTRIC, i.e. referred to the centre of the sun ([Greek: helios]) as an origin, a term designating especially co-ordinates or heavenly bodies referred to that origin.