[Illustration] Of course, every intelligent reader will be able to add to this list; but no more space can be allowed for the subject in this dictionary.

ER’RUA ("the mad-cap"), a young man whose wit defeated the strength of the giant Tartaro (a sort of one-eyed Polypheme).  Thus the first competition was in throwing a stone.  The giant threw his stone, but Errua threw a bird, which the giant supposed to be a stone, and as it flew out of sight, Errua won the wager.  The next wager was a bar of iron.  After the giant had thrown, Errua said, “From here to Salamanca;” whereupon the giant bade him not to throw, lest the bar of iron should kill his father and mother, who lived there; so the giant lost the second wager.  The third was to pull a tree up by the roots; and the giant gave in because Errua had run a cord around a host of trees, and said, “You pull up one, but I pull up all these.”  The next exploit was at bed-time; Errua was to sleep in a certain bed; but he placed a dead man in the bed, while he himself got under it.  At midnight Tartaro took his club and belabored the dead body most unmercifully.  When Errua stood before Tartaro next morning, the giant was dumbfounded.  He asked Errua how he had slept.  “Excellently well,” said Errua, “but somewhat troubled by fleas.”  Other trials were made, but always in favor of Errua.  At length a race was proposed, and Errua sewed into a bag the bowels of a pig.  When he started, he cut the bag, strewing the bowels on the road.  When Tartaro was told that his rival had done this to make himself more fleet, he cut his belly, and of course killed himself.—­Rev. W. Webster, Basque Legends (1877).

ERS’KINE (The.  Rev. Dr.), minister of Grayfriar’s Church, Edinburgh.—­Sir W. Scott, Guy Mannering (time, George II.).

ER’TANAX, a fish common in the Euphrates.  The bones of this fish impart courage and strength.

A fish ... haunteth the flood of Eufrates ... it is called an ertanax, and his bones be of such a manner of kind that whoso handleth them he shall have so much courage that he shall never be weary, and he shall not think on joy nor sorrow that he hath had, but only on the thing he beholdeth before him.—­Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, iii. 84, (1470).

ERUDITE (Most).  Marcus Terentius Varro is called “the most erudite of the Romans” (B.C. 116-27).

ER’YTHRE, modesty personified, the virgin page of Parthen’ia or maiden of chastity, in The Purple Island, by Phineas Fletcher (1633).  Fully described in canto x. (Greek, cruthros, “red,” from eruthriao, “to blush.”)

ERYSICHTHON [Erri. sik’. thon], a grandson of Neptune, who was punished by Ceres with insatiable hunger, for cutting down some trees in a grove sacred to that goddess. (See ERISICHTHON.)

ES’CALUS, an ancient, kind-hearted lord in the deputation of the duke of Vienna.—­Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603).