Chapter H to Hagring of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Hafed A Gheber or Fire-worshipper, in love with Hinda, the Arabian emir's daughter, whom he first saw when he entered the palace under the hope of being able to slay her father, the tyrant usurper of Persia. He was the leader of a band sworn to free their country or die, and his name was a terror to the Arab, who looked upon him as superhuman. His rendezvous was betrayed by a traitor comrade, but when the Moslem army came to take him he threw himself into the sacred fire, and was burnt to death. (Thomas Moore.)

Hafiz The great Persian lyrist, called the "Persian Anacreon" (fourteenth century). His odes are called ghazels, and are both sweet and graceful. The word hafiz (retainer) is a degree given to those who know by heart the Koran and Hadith (traditions).

Hag A witch or sorceress. (Anglo-Saxon, hægtesse, a witch or hag.)

"How now you secret, black, and midnight hags?" Shakespeare: Macbeth, iv. I.

Hagan of Trony or Haco of Norway, son of Aldrian, liegeman of Günther, King of Burgundy. Günther invited Siegfried to a hunt of wild beasts, but while the king of Netherland stooped to drink from a brook, Hagan stabbed him between the shoulders, the only vulnerable point in his whole body. He then deposited the dead body at the door of Kriemhild's chamber, that she might stumble on it when she went to matins, and suppose that he had been murdered by assassins. When Kriemhild sent to Worms for the "Nibelung Hoard," Hagan seized it, and buried it secretly somewhere beneath the Rhine, intending himself to enjoy it. Kriemhild, with a view of vengeance, married Etzel, King of the Huns, and after the lapse of seven years, invited the king of Burgundy, with Hagan and many others, to the court of her husband, but the invitation was a mere snare. A terrible broil was stirred up in the banquet hall, which ended in the slaughter of all the Burgundians but two (Günther and Hagan), who were taken prisoners and given to Kriemhild, who cut off both their heads. Hagan lost an eye when he fell upon Walter of Spain. He was dining on the chine of a wild boar when Walter pelted him with the bones, one of which struck him in the eye. Hagan's person is thus described in the great German epic: -

"Well-grown and well-compacted was that redoubted guest;
Long were his legs and sinewy, and deep and broad his chest;
His hair, that once was sable, with grey was dashed of late;
Most terrible his visage, and lordly was his gait."
The Nibelungen-Lied, stanza 1780.

Hagarenes (3 syl.). The Moors are so called, being the supposed descendants of Hagar, Abraham's bondwoman.

"San Diego ... hath often been seen conquering ... the Hagarene squadrons." - Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. book iv. 6.

Haggadah (plur. haggadoth). The free rabbinical interpretation of Scripture. (Hebrew, hagged, to relate.) (See Farrar: Life of Christ, vol. ii. chap. lviii. p. 333.)

Hagi (See Hadj .)

Hag-knots Tangles in the manes of wild ponies, supposed to be used by witches for stirrups. The term is common in the New Forest. Seamen use the word hag's-teeth to express those parts of a matting, etc., which spoil its general uniformity.

Hagring The Fata Morgana. (Scandinavian.)