Chapter Inis-Thona to Iras of I by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Interpreter (Mr.), in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, means the Holy Ghost as it operates on the heart of a believer. He is lord of a house a little beyond the Wicket Gate.—Pt. i. (1678).

Inveraschalloch, one of the Highlanders at the Clachan of Aberfoyle.—Sir W. Scott: Rob Roy (time, George I.).

Invincible Doctor (The), William of Occam; also called Doctor Singularis (1270–1347).

Invisible Knight (The), sir Garlon, brother of king Pellam (nigh of kin to Joseph of Arimathy). “He is sir Garlon,” said the knight, “he with the black face, he is the marvellest knight living, for the goeth invisible.”—Sir T. Malory: History of Prince Arthur, i. 39 (1470).

Invisibility is obtained by amulets, dress, herbs, rings, stones, etc. (I) Amulets: as the capon-stone called “Alectoria,” which rendered those invisible who carried it about their person.—Mirror of Stones. (2) Dress: as Albric’s cloak called “Tarnkappe” , which Siegfried got possession of (The Nibelungen Lied); the mantle of Hel Keplein (q.v.).

Jack the Giant-killer had a cloak of invisibility as well as a cap of knowledge. The helmet of Perseus or Hades (Greek Fable) and Mambrino’s helmet rendered the wearers invisible. The moros musphonon was a girdle of invisibility (Mrs. Centlivre: A Bold Stroke for a Wife). (3) Herbs: as fern seed, mentioned by Shakespeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher. (4) Rings: as Gyges’s ring, taken from the flanks of a brazen horse. When the stone was turned inwards, the wearer was invisible (Plato). The ring of Otnit king of Lombardy, according to The Heldenbuch, possessed a similar virtue. Reynard’s wonderful ring had three colours, one of which (the green) caused the wearer to be invisible (Reynard the Fox, 1498); this was the gem called heliotrope. (5) Stones: as heliotrope, mentioned by Boccaccio in his Decameron (day viii. 3). It is of a green hue. Solinus attributes this power to the herb heliotrope: “Herba ejusdem nominis… eum, a quocunque gestabitur, subtrahit visibus obviorum.”—Geog., xl. (6) Poignard: the poignard of Seidel-Beckir rendered the person who bore it, and others also, invisible. (See Seidel; Superstitions, article, The Blood of a Dog.)

Invulnerability. (I) Stones taken from the cassan plant, which grows in Panten, will render the possessor invulnerable.—Odoricus: In Hakluyt.

(2) A dip in the river Styx rendered Achillês invulnerable. (3) Luned’s ring. (See Ring.) (4) Medea rendered Jason proof against wounds and fire by anointing him with the Promethean unguent.—Greek Fable. (5) Siegfried was rendered invulnerable by anointing his body with dragon’s blood.—Nibelungen Lied.

Ion, the title and hero of a tragedy by T. N. Talfourd (1835). The oracle of Delphi had declared that the pestilence which raged in Argos was sent by way of punishment for the misrule of the race of Argos, and that the vengeance of the gods could be averted only by the extirpation of the guilty race. Ion, the son of the king, offered himself a willing sacrifice, and as he was dying, Irus entered and announced that “the pestilence was abating.” The heroine is Clemanthe.

Iona, an island of Scotland south of Staffa, noted for its Culdee institutions, established by St. Columb in 563. It is now called “Icolm-kill,” and in Macbeth, act ii. sc. 4, “Colmes-kill” (Kill means “burying- ground”).

Unscathed they left Iona’s strand
When the opal morn first flushed the sky.
   —Campbell: Reullura.

Iona’s Saint, St. Columb, seen on the top of the church spires, on certain evenings every year, counting the surrounding islands, to see that none of them have been sunk by the power of witchcraft.

As Iona’s saint, a giant form,
Throned on his towers conversing with the storm…
Counts every wave-worn isle and mountain hoar
From Kilda to the green Ierne’s shore [from the Herbrides to Ireland].
   —Campbell: The Pleasures of Hope, ii. (1799).