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Wayland Smith

(Encyclopedia)Wayland Smith, in English folklore, a skillful blacksmith and great armor maker, whose forge was near the White Horse (Oxfordshire). He appears in the Old English Beowulf and Deor and in Sir Walter Sc...

Mayno, Juan Bautista

(Encyclopedia)Mayno or Maino, Juan Bautista hwän boutēsˈtä mīˈnō [key], 1578–1649, Spanish painter. He entered the Dominican order in Toledo, where he is thought to have studied with El Greco. He was drawi...

Elizabeth of Valois

(Encyclopedia)Elizabeth of Valois vălˈwä, Fr. välwäˈ [key], 1545–68, queen of Spain, daughter of Henry II of France. Originally intended to wed Don Carlos, son of Philip II of Spain, she was married (1559) ...

Benedict XI

(Encyclopedia)Benedict XI, d. 1304, pope (1303–4), an Italian (b. Treviso) named Niccolo Boccasini; successor of Boniface VIII. Prior to his election he had been master general of the Dominican order. As pope he ...

Carlos, prince of the Asturias

(Encyclopedia)Carlos, 1545–68, prince of the Asturias, son of Philip II of Spain and Maria of Portugal. Don Carlos, who seems to have been mentally unbalanced and subject to fits of homicidal mania, was imprisone...

Joanna, Spanish queen of Castile

(Encyclopedia)Joanna (Joanna the Mad), 1479–1555, Spanish queen of Castile and León (1504–55), daughter of Ferdinand II and Isabella I. She succeeded to Castile and León at the death of her mother. Ferdinand ...

Brown, John, Scottish essayist

(Encyclopedia)Brown, John, 1810–82, Scottish essayist. He was a physician. His writing was collected in Horae Subsecivae (3 vol., 1858–82), which included his unique picture of a dog, Rab and His Friends (1859)...

Theopompus

(Encyclopedia)Theopompus thēˌōpŏmˈpəs [key], fl. 4th cent. b.c., Greek historian and rhetorician, b. Chios. He studied with the orator Isocrates and became a friend of both Philip and Alexander of Macedon. Hi...

Roanoke Island

(Encyclopedia)Roanoke Island, 12 mi (19 km) long and 3 mi (4.8 km) wide, NE N.C., off the Atlantic coast between Croatan (W) and Roanoke (E) sounds in the Outer Banks. Manteo is the chief town, and tourism and fish...

Dryburgh Abbey

(Encyclopedia)Dryburgh Abbey drīˈbərə [key], Premonstratensian abbey, Scottish Borders, SE Scotland, on the Tweed below Melrose. Founded in 1150, it was several times destroyed (1322 and 1545) and rebuilt and i...