Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/792

* HELENA. J3-2 HELIACAL RISING. called his mother to the Court. It is also prob- able that late in life Helena became a Christian through Constantinc's iniluence, and won the gratitude uf the Christian community by her zeal for the advancement of religion, and her acts of piety and munificence. Among the public events of her Christian life, the most remarkable is the discovery (according to the belief of the Church) of the cross of the Lord during the mem- orable visit she made to the Holy Land, after 326. ( See Cross, Invention of ; Holt Sepulchre. ) She died in the year 328, or later. Other saints of the same name are Olga, wife of the Grand Prince Igor of Kiev (died 969), who is hon- ored in the Russian Church ; and Helena of Skcifde, Sweden, who suffered martyrdom in the twelfth century. HELENA. A fantastic tragedy by Euripides (B.C. 412), founded on the story that the real Helen never was at Troy, but was represented there by a phantom, while she was carried to Egypt by the gods. There she was found by IIenelaus after the Trojan War and rescued from the Eg>'ptian King, and the phantom Helen vanished. HELENA. (1) The leading character in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well, in love with Bertram, who le.ives her on their wedding day. (2) An Athenian lady, enamored of De- metrius, in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. HELENA, The. A name given in Germany to Act iii.. Part 2 of Goethe's Faust, which was begun in 1800 and published separately in 1827, under the title of Helena: A Classic-Romantic Phantasmagoria. It is a complete allegorical poem in itself, and only slightly connected with the action of the drama. In it Helen marries Faust, signifying the fostering of Hellenism in German literature, and bears him a son Eu- phorian. typifying Byron, who soon destroys him- self by his restless activity. Helen also disap- pears, leaving Faust only her veil and garments. HfeLENE, ti'lan', Louise Elisabeth, Duchess of Orleans. See Orleans. HELENSBURGH, hel'enz-bur'u. A favorite watering-place in Dumbarton, Scotland, on the right bank of the Firth of Clyde, opposite Green- ock, from which it is four miles distant (Map: Scotland. D 3). Population, in 1891, 8409; in 1901. 8554. HEL'ENtrS (Lat., from Gk.'EXeras, Helenas). The one son of Priam to survive the siege of Troy. After the death of Paris, he vainly wooed Helen, and either withdrew to Mount Ida, where at the instance of Calchas he was captured by Odysseus, or deserted to the Greeks outright. He was the twin brother of Cassandra, and, like her. gifted with prophecy. He declared that Troy could not be subdued without Neoptolemus and Philoctetes, and his was the suggestion that the Greeks steal the Palladiiuu and build the wooden horse. Fallen, along with Andromache, to the share of Neoptolemus. he won this prince's good will by foretelling the tempest which the em- barking Greeks should encounter, and by dis- suading him from starting. He was taken to Phthia, but advised his master to settle in Epirus. Grateful for his fidelity, Neoptolemus bestowed upon him Andromache, by whom he had a son, Cestrinus. After the death of his King, Ilelenus ruled over a part of Epirus which he called Chaonia. HELFERT, hel'fert, Alexander, Baron (1820—). An Austrian author and politician, born at Prague, where his father, an ecclesiasti- cal historian, was professor. After serving as assistant to his father and as instructor at the University of Cracow, he was elected to the Austrian Parliament of 1848. He soon became connected with the Ministry of Education, of which (1800-61) he was provisional head, and then was made head of the educational bureaxi in the Ministry of State, and president of the Imperial Conmiission on Art and Archteology. He became prominent as leader of the Clerical Federalist Party in the Austrian House of Peers, which he entered in 1881. He was editor of the Oesterreichisches Jahrbiich (1885 sq.), and of a popular Oesterreichische Geschichte (1863) ; author of many historical works, of which the following may be mentioned: lluss und Hierony- i:ius (1853); Die osterreichische Volksschule ( 1860-01 ) ; Die Schlacht bei Kiilm, 1S13 ( 1863) ; (leschichlc Ocstcrreichs vom Ausgange des Mlencr Oktoberaufstandes i8.}S( 1869-86) ; Maria Liiise (1873) ; Joachim Murat (1878) ; Fabrizio Kuffo (1882); ISl'f. Ausgang der franzosischen Herrschaft in Oberitalien (1890); Gregor XVI. und Pius IX. (1896) ; and Kaiser Franz I. von Oesterreich vnd die Stifiung des Imnbardo-vene- tianischen Konigreichs (1901). HELGOLAND, hel'go lant, or HELIGO- LAND. A small German island in the North Sea, situated about 35 miles off the western coast of Schleswig-Holstein, in latitude 54° 10' N., and longitude 7° 53' E. (Slap: Germany, B 1 ) . It covers only a little over one-fifth of a square mile. A few centuries ago the island had five times its present area, but the sea is fast consuming it. Helgoland has two good ports, one on its northern and another on its southern side. The inhabitants are supported chiefly by fishing and commerce, by .serving as pilots, and by cater- ing to the needs of the strangers who come for se.a-bathing. A lighthouse stands on the cliff near the village. Helgoland is important strate- gically, and is strongly fortified. "The population in 1900 was 2307. 'The natives are of Frisian origin and speak a Frisian dialect, although Ger- man is the official language. Helgoland was anciently sacred to the goddess Hertha. and was known as Fosetisland, from the Frisian goddess Foseta, who had a temple on the island. From the middle of the tenth century it was an inde- pendent republic, but came into the possession of the dukes of Schleswig in the fourteenth cen- tury, and was captured in the beginning of the eighteenth century by Denmark. In 1807 it was occupied by Great Britain, to whom it was officially ceded by Denmark in 1814. By treaty between England and Germany the island became a German possession in 1890. HELI'ACAL RISING (from Lat. hrliacus. Gk. :7Xia/(6s, hcliakos, pertaining to the sun, from <)Xios, Ik'Uos, sun ; connected with Lat. sol, Goth. sawil, A.S., Icel. sol, Ir. sul. Lith., Lett., OPruss. savls, Skt. sura, svar, sun). A star is said to rise heliacally when it rises just before the sun. When the sun approaches a star which is near the ecliptic, the star becomes for a season in- visible — the heavens being too bright in the quarters of sunrise and sunset, at the time of its