Lady Eleanor Ashton, wife of sir William.

Colonel Sholto Douglas Ashton, eldest son of sir William.

Lucy Ashton, daughter of sir William, betrothed to Edgar (the master of Ravenswood); but being compelled to marry Frank Hayston (laird of Bucklaw), she tries to murder him in the bridal chamber, and becomes insane.  Lucy dies, but the laird recovers.—­Sir W. Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor (time, William III.).

(This has been made the subject of an opera by Donizetti, called Lucia di Lammermoor, 1835.)

ASIA, the wife of that Pharaoh who brought up Moses.  She was the daughter of Mozahem.  Her husband tortured her for believing in Moses; but she was taken alive into paradise.—­Sale, Al Koran, xx., note, and Ixvi., note.

Mahomet says, “Among women four have been perfect:  Asia, wife of Pharaoh; Mary, daughter of Imran; Khadijah, the prophet’s first wife; and Fatima, his own daughter.”

AS’IR, the twelve chief gods of Scandinavian mythology—­Odin, Thor, Baldr, Niord, Frey, Tyr, Bragi, Heimdall, Vidar, Vali, Ullur, and Forseti.

Sometimes the goddesses—­Frigga, Freyja, Idu’na, and Saga, are ranked among the Asir also.

AS’MADAI (3 syl.) the same as As-mode’us (4 syl.) the lustful and destroying angel, who robbed Sara of her seven husbands (Tobit iii. 8).  Milton makes him one of the rebellious angels overthrown by Uriel and Ra’phael.  Hume says the word means “the destroyer.”—­Paradise Lost, vi 365 (1665).

ASMODE’US (4 syl.), the demon of vanity and dress, called in the Talmud “king of the devils.”  As “dress” is one of the bitterest evils of modern life, it is termed “the Asmodeus of domestic peace,” a phrase employed to express any “skeleton” in the house of a private family.

In the book of Tobit Asmodeus falls in love with Sara, daughter of Rag’uel, and causes the successive deaths of seven husbands each on his bridal night, but when Sara married Tobit, Asmodeus was driven into Egypt by a charm made of the heart and liver of a fish burnt on perfumed ashes.

(Milton throws the accent on the third syl., Tennyson on the second.)

  Better pleased
  Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume.

Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 168.

  Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me.

Tennyson, St. Simeon Stylites.

Asmode’us, a “diable bon-homme,” with more gaiety than malice; not the least like Mephistopheles.  He is the companion of Cle’ofas, whom he carries through the air, and shows him the inside of houses, where they see what is being done in private or secrecy without being seen.  Although Asmodeus is not malignant, yet with all his wit, acuteness, and playful malice, we never forget the fiend.—­Le Sage, Le Diable Boiteux.

(Such was the popularity of the Diable Boiteux, that two young men fought a duel in a bookseller’s shop over the only remaining copy, an incident worthy to be recorded by Asmodeus himself.)