Chapter O to Oberthal of O by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

O'asis A perfect o'asis. A fertile spot in the midst of a desert country, a little charmed plot of land. The reference is to those spots in the desert of Africa where wells of water or small lakes are to be found, and vegetation is pretty abundant. (Coptic word, called by Herodotos auasis.)

Oath The sacred oath of the Persians is By the Holy Grave - i.e. the Tomb of Shah Besade, who is buried in Casbin. (Strut.)

Oaths Rhadamanthus imposed on the Cretans the law that men should not swear by the gods, but by the dog, ram, goose, and plane-tree. Hence Socrates would not swear by the gods, but by the dog and goose.

Oats He has sown his wild oats. He has left off his gay habits and is become steady. The thick vapours which rise on the earth's surface just before the lands in the north burst into vegetation, are called in Denmark Lok kens havre (Loki's wild oats). When the fine weather succeeds, the Danes say, “Loki has sown his wild oats.”

Ob and Sol. Objection and solution. Contractions formerly used by students in academical disputations.

Obadiah A slang name for a Quaker.
   Obadiah. One of the servants of Mr. Shandy. (Sterne: Tristram Shandy.)

Obambou The devil of the Camma tribes of Africa. It is exorcised by noise like bees in flight.

Obelisk (See Dagger. )

Obelus A small brass coin (nearly 1d. in value) placed by the Greeks in the mouth of the dead to pay Charon for ferrying the body over the river Styx. Same as obolos, an obol.

Obermann The impersonation of high moral worth without talent, and the tortures endured by the consciousness of this defect. (Etienne Pivert de Senancour: Obermann.)

Oberon King of the Fairies, whose wife was Titania. Shakespeare introduces both O'beron and Titania, in his Midsummer Night's Dream. (Auberon, anciently Alberon, German Alberich, king of the elves.)
   O'beron the Fay. A humpty dwarf only three feet high, but of angelic face, lord and king of Mommur. He told Sir Huon his pedigree, which certainly is very romantic. The lady of the Hidden Isle (Cephalonia) married Neptanebus, King of Egypt, by whom she had a son called Alexander the Great. Seven hundred years later Julius Caesar, on his way to Thessaly, stopped in Cephalonia, and the same lady, falling in love with him, had in time another son, and that son was Oberon. At his birth the fairies bestowed their gifts - one was insight into men's thoughts, and another was the power of transporting himself to any place instantaneously. He became a friend to Huon (q.v.), whom he made his successor in the kingdom of Mommur. In the fulness of time, falling asleep in death, legions of angels conveyed his soul to Paradise. (Huon de Bordeaux, a romance.)

Oberthal (Count). Lord of Dordrecht, near the Meuse. When Bertha, one of his vassals, asked permission to marry John of Leyden, the count refused, resolving to make her his mistress. This drove John into rebellion, and he joined the Anabaptists. The count was taken prisoner by Giona, a discarded servant, but liberated by John. When John was crowned Prophet-king, the count entered his banquet-hall to arrest him, and perished with John in the flames of the burning palace. (Meyerbeer: Le Prophète, a romance.)