ELSHENDER THE RECLUSE, called “the Canny Elshie” or the “Wise Wight of Mucklestane Moor.”  This is “the black dwarf,” or Sir Edward Mauley, the hero of the novel.—­Sir W. Scott, The Black Dwarf (time Anne).

ELSIE, the daughter of Gottlieb, a cottage farmer of Bavaria.  Prince Henry of Hoheneck, being struck with leprosy, was told he would never be cured till a maiden chaste and spotless offered to give her life in sacrifice for him.  Elsie volunteered to die for the prince, and he accompanied her to Salerno; but either the exercise, the excitement, or some charm, no matter what, had quite cured the prince, and when he entered the cathedral with Elsie, it was to make her Lady Alicia, his bride.—­Hartmann von der Aue, Poor Henry (twelfth century); Longfellow, Golden Legend.

[Illustration] Alcestis, daughter of Pelias and wife of Admetos died instead of her husband, but was brought back by Hercules from the shades below, and restored to her husband.

Elsie (Venner), a girl marked before her birth as one apart from her kind.  Her mother, treading upon a rattle-snake near her door, leaves the imprint of the loathsome thing upon the child.  She is a “splendid scowling beauty” with glittering black eyes.  When angry, they are narrowed and gleam like diamonds, and “charm” after an unhuman fashion.  She bit her cousin when a child, and the wound had to be cauterized.  She is wild almost to savagery and she falls in love with her tutor savagely for awhile, afterward loves him hopelessly.  She dies of a strange decline, and the ugly mark about her throat that obliges her always to wear a necklace has faded out.—­Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Venner (1861).

ELSMERE (Robert), hero of religious novel of same name, by Mrs. Humphrey Ward.

ELSPETH (Auld), the old servant of Dandie Dinmont, the store-farmer of Charlie’s Hope.—­Sir W. Scott, Guy Mannering (time George II.).

Elspeth (Old) of the Craigburnfoot, the mother of Saunders Muckelbacket (the old fisherman at Musselcrag), and formerly servant to the countess of Glenallan.—­Sir W. Scott, The Antiquary (time George III.).

ELVINO, a wealthy farmer in love with Amina the somnambulist.  Amina being found in the bedroom of Conte Rodolfo the day before her wedding, induces Elvino to break off the match and promise marriage to Lisa; but as the truth of the matter breaks upon him, and he is convinced of Amina’s innocence, he turns over Lisa to Alessio, her paramour, and marries Amina, his first and only love.—­Bellini’s opera, La Sonnambula (1831).

ELVIRA, sister of Don Duart, and niece of the governor of Lisbon.  She marries Coldio, the coxcomb son of Don Antonio.—­C.  Cibber, Love Makes a Man.

Elvira, the young wife of Gomez, a rich old banker.  She carries on a liaison with Colonel Lorenzo, by the aid of her father-confessor Dominick, but is always checkmated, and it turns out that Lorenzo is her brother.—­Dryden, The Spanish Fryar (1680).