Chapter Orelio to ORION of O by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Orillo, a magician and robber, who lived at the mouth of the Nile. He was the son of an imp and fairy. When any one of his limbs was lopped off, he had the power of restoring it; and when his head was cut off, he could take it up and replace it. When Astolpho encountered this magician, he was informed that his life lay in one particular hair; so instead of seeking to maim him, he cut off the magic hair, and the magician fell lifeless at his feet.—Ariosto: Orlando Furioso (1516).

Orinda “the incomparable,” Mrs. Katherine Philipps, who lived in the reign of Charles II. and died of small-pox.

Her praises were sung by Cowley, Dryden, and others.

We allowed you beauty, and we did submit …
Ah, cruel sex, will you depose us too in wit?
Orinda does in that too reign.
   —Cowley: On Orinda’s Poems (1647).

Oriole . In America, the “Baltimore bird” is often so called; but the oriole is of the thrush family, and the Baltimore bird is a starling. Its nest is a pendulous cylindrical pouch, some six inches long, usually suspended from two twigs at the extremity of a branch, and therefore liable to swing backwards and forwards by the force of the wind. Hence Longfellow compares a child’s swing to an oriole’s nest—

… like an oriole’s nest,
From which the laughing birds have taken wing;
By thee abandoned hangs thy vacant swing.
   —Longfellow: To a Child.

ORION, a giant of great beauty, and a fam ous hunter, who cleared the island of Chios of wild beasts. While in the island, Orion fell in love with Meropê, daughter of king Œnopion; but one day, in a drunken fit, having offered her violence, the king put out the giant’s eyes and drove him from the island. Orion was told if he would travel eastwards, and expose his sockets to the rising sun, he would recover his sight. Guided by the sound of a Cyclops’ hammer, he reached Lemnos, where Vulcan gave him a guide to the abode of the sun. In due time his sight returned to him, and at death he was made a constellation. The lion’s skin was an emblem of the wild beasts which he slew in Chios, and the club was the instrument he employed for the purpose.

He [Orion]
Reeled as of yore beside the sea,
When, blinded by Œnopion,
He sought the blacksmith at the forge,
And, climbing up the mountain gorge,
Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun.
   —Longfellow: The Occultation of Orion.

Orion and the Blacksmith. The reference is to the blacksmith mentioned in the preceding article, whom Orion took on his back to act as guide to the place where the rising sun might be best seen.

Orion’s Dogs were Arctophonus (“the bear-killer”) and Ptoophagos (“the glutton of Ptoon,” in Bœotia).

Orion’s Wife, Sidê.