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 Münnerstadt 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. Jänicke, E. Martin, A. Amelung and J. Zupitza at Berlin (1866–1873). A selection, edited by E. Henrici, will be found in Kürschner’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° 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. Ἑλένη),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 Deïphobus,
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 Leukē. 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 σέβου μ᾽, Ἑλένας φυτὸν εἰμί). 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 antiquités; 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 (ἑλένη) 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’église d’Édesse (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
