imaginary. In this work he for the first time systematized an old Oriental (perhaps Phoenician) method of interpreting the popular myths, asserting that the gods who formed the chief objects of popular worship had been originally heroes and conquerors, who had thus earned a claim to the veneration of their subjects. This system spread widely, and the early Christians especially appealed to it as a confirmation of their belief that ancient mythology was merely an aggregate of fables of human invention. Euhemerus was a firm upholder of the Cyrenaic philosophy, and by many ancient writers he was regarded as an atheist. His work was translated by Ennius into Latin, but the work itself is lost, and of the translation only a few fragments, and these very short, have come down to us.
This rationalizing method of interpretation is known as Euhemerism. There is no doubt that it contains an element of truth; as among the Romans the gradual deification of ancestors and the apotheosis of emperors were prominent features of religious development, so among primitive peoples it is possible to trace the evolution of family and tribal gods from great chiefs and warriors. All theories of religion which give prominence to ancestor worship and the cult of the dead are to a certain extent Euhemeristic. But as the sole explanation of the origin of the idea of gods it is not accepted by students of comparative religion. It had, however, considerable vogue in France. In the 18th century the abbé Banier, in his Mythologie et la fable expliquées par l’histoire, was frankly Euhemeristic; other leading Euhemerists were Clavier, Sainte-Croix, Raoul Rochette, Em. Hoffmann and to a great extent Herbert Spencer.
See Raymond de Block, Évhémère, son livre et sa doctrine (Mons, 1876); G. N. Némethy, Euhemeri relliquiae (Budapest, 1889); Gauss, Quaestiones Euhemereae (Kempen, 1860); Otto Sieroka, De Euhemero (1869); Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, vol. i. (Leipzig, 1891); and works on comparative religion and mythology.
EULENSPIEGEL [Ulenspiegel], TILL, the name of a German
folk-hero, and the title of a popular German chapbook on the
subject, of the beginning of the 16th century. The oldest existing
German text of the book was printed at Strassburg in 1515
(Ein kurtzweilig lesen von Dyl Vlenspiegel geboren vss dem land zu
Brunsswick), and again in 1519. This is not in the original
dialect, which was undoubtedly Low Saxon, but in High German,
the translation having been formerly ascribed—but on insufficient
evidence—to the Catholic satirist Thomas Murner. Its hero,
Till Eulenspiegel or Ulenspiegel, the son of a peasant, was born
at Kneitlingen in Brunswick, at the end of the 13th or at the
beginning of the 14th century. He died, according to tradition,
at Mölln near Lübeck in 1350. The jests and practical jokes
ascribed to him were collected—if we may believe a statement
in one of the old prints—in 1483; but in any case the edition
of 1515 was not even the oldest High German edition.
Eulenspiegel himself is locally associated with the Low German area
extending from Magdeburg to Hanover, and from Lüneburg to
the Harz Mountains. He is the wily peasant who loves to
exercise his wit and roguery on the tradespeople of the towns,
above all, on the innkeepers; but priests, noblemen, even
princes, are also among his victims. His victories are often
pointless, more often brutal; he stoops without hesitation to
scurrility and obscenity, while of the finer, sharper wit which
the humanists and the Italians introduced into the anecdote,
he has little or nothing. His jests are coarsely practical, and his
satire turns on class distinctions. In fact, this chapbook might
be described as the retaliation of the peasant on the townsman
who in the 14th and 15th centuries had begun to look down
upon the country boor as a natural inferior.
In spite of its essentially Low German character, Eulenspiegel was extremely popular in other lands, and, at an early date, was translated into Dutch, French, English, Latin, Danish, Swedish, Bohemian and Polish. In England, “Howleglas” (Scottish, Holliglas) was long a familiar figure; his jests were rapidly adapted to English conditions, and appropriated in the collections associated with Robin Goodfellow, Scogan and others. Ben Johnson refers to him as “Howleglass” and “Ulenspiegel” in his Masque of the Fortunate Isles, Poetaster, Alchemist and Sad Shepherd, and a verse by Taylor the “water poet” would seem to imply that the “Owliglasse” was a familiar popular type. Till Eulenspiegel’s “merry pranks” have been made the subject of a well-known orchestral symphony by Richard Strauss. In France, it may be noted, the name has given rise to the words espiègle and espièglerie.
The Strassburg edition of 1515 (British Museum) has been reprinted by H. Knust in the Neudrucke deutscher Literaturwerke des 16. und 17. Jahrh. No. 55-56 (1885); that of 1519 by J. M. Lappenberg, Dr Thomas Murners Ulenspiegel (1854). W. Scherer (“Die Anfänge des Prosaromans in Deutschland,” in Quellen und Forschungen, vol. xxi., 1877, pp. 28 ff. and 78 ff.) has shown that there must have been a still earlier High German edition. See also C. Walter in Niederdeutsches Jahrbuch, xix. (1894), pp. 1 ff. Further editions appeared at Cologne, printed by Servais Kruffter, undated (reproduced in photo-lithography from the two imperfect copies in Berlin and Vienna, 1865); Erfurt, 1532, 1533–1537 and 1538; Cologne, 1539; Strassburg, 1539; Augsburg, 1540 and 1541; Strassburg, 1543; Frankfort on the Main, 1545; Strassburg, 1551; Cologne, 1554, &c. Johann Fischart published an adaptation in verse, Der Eulenspiegel Reimensweis (Strassburg, 1571), K. Simrock a modernization in 1864 (2nd ed., 1878); there is also one by K. Pannier in Reclam’s Universalbibliothek (1883). The earliest translation was that into Dutch, printed by Hoochstraten at Antwerp (Royal Lib., Copenhagen); it is undated, but may have appeared as early as 1512. See facsimile reprint by M. Nijhoff (the Hague, 1898). This served as the basis for the first French version: Ulenspiegel, de sa vie, de ses œuvres et merveilleuses aduentures par luy faictes . . . . nouuellement translate et corrige de Flamant en Francoys (Paris, 1532). Reprint, edited by P. Jannet (1882). This was followed by upwards of twenty French editions down to the beginning of the 18th century. The latest translation is that by J. C. Delepierre (Bruges, 1835 and 1840). Cf. Prudentius van Duyse, Étude littéraire sur Tiel l’Espiègle (Ghent, 1858). The first complete English translation was also made from the Dutch, and bears the title: Here beginneth a merye Jest of a man called Howleglas, &c., printed by Copland in three editions, probably between 1548 and 1560. Reprint by F. Ouvry (1867). This, however, was itself merely a reprint of a still older English edition (1518?), of which the British Museum possesses fragments. Reprinted by F. Brie, Eulenspiegel in England (1903). In 1720 appeared The German Rogue, or the Life and Merry Adventures of Tiel Eulenspiegel. Made English from the High-Dutch; and an English illustrated edition, adapted by K. R. H. Mackenzie in 1880 (2nd ed., 1890). On Eulenspiegel in England, see especially C. H. Herford, Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century (1888), pp. 242 ff., and F. Brie’s work already referred to. (J. G. R.)
EULER, LEONHARD (1707–1783), Swiss mathematician,
was born at Basel on the 15th of April 1707, his father Paul
Euler, who had considerable attainments as a mathematician,
being Calvinistic pastor of the neighbouring village of Riechen.
After receiving preliminary instructions in mathematics from
his father, he was sent to the university of Basel, where geometry
soon became his favourite study. His mathematical genius
gained for him a high place in the esteem of Jean Bernoulli, who
was at that time one of the first mathematicians in Europe,
as well as of his sons Daniel and Nicolas Bernoulli. Having
taken his degree as master of arts in 1723, Euler applied himself,
at his father’s desire, to the study of theology and the Oriental
languages with the view of entering the church, but, with his
father’s consent, he soon returned to geometry as his principal
pursuit. At the same time, by the advice of the younger
Bernoullis, who had removed to St Petersburg in 1725, he applied
himself to the study of physiology, to which he made a happy
application of his mathematical knowledge; and he also attended
the medical lectures at Basel. While he was engaged in
physiological researches, he composed a dissertation on the nature
and propagation of sound, and an answer to a prize question
concerning the masting of ships, to which the French Academy
of Sciences adjudged the second rank in the year 1727.
In 1727, on the invitation of Catherine I., Euler took up his residence in St Petersburg, and was made an associate of the Academy of Sciences. In 1730 he became professor of physics, and in 1733 he succeeded Daniel Bernoulli in the chair of mathematics. At the commencement of his new career he enriched the academical collection with many memoirs, which excited a noble emulation between him and the Bernoullis, though this did not in any way affect their friendship. It was at this time that he carried the integral calculus to a higher degree of perfection, invented the calculation of sines, reduced analytical operations
