Cuneiform is a term descriptive of a form of writing of which the component parts resemble a wedge. It was used by the peoples of Babylonia, Assyria and other ancient nations, and was inscribed upon stone, bronze, iron, glass and clay. It was not until the seventeenth century that the wedge-shaped characters were suspected to be other than "idle fancies of the architects."

The talisman was a species of charm, consisting of a figure engraved on metal or stone when two planets are in conjunction, or when a star is at its culminating point, and supposed to exert some protective influence over the wearer of it. The terms talisman and amulet are often considered nearly synonymous, but the proper distinctive peculiarity of the former is its astrological character.

Arthur's Round Table contained seats for one hundred and fifty knights. Three were reserved, two for honor, and one (called the "siege perilous") for Sir Galahad, destined to achieve the quest of the sangreal. If any one else attempted to sit in it, his death was the certain penalty. The table shown visitors at Winchester is one of several claimed to be the "original" Arthur's Round Table.

In the fanciful system of the Paracelsists the Undines were female water-sprites. They intermarry readily with human beings, and the Undine who gives birth to a child under such a union receives, with her babe, a human soul. But the man who takes an Undine to wife must be careful not to go on the water with her, or at least must not vex her while there, or she returns to her native element.

Isis was an Egyptian goddess. The deities of ancient Egypt might be male or female, but in neither case could the Egyptian worshipper conceive a deity as existing in isolation: to every deity of either sex there must be a counterpart of the other sex. It was to this notion that the goddess Isis owed her origin; she was the counterpart of Osiris, and this fact is expressed in the statement that she was at once wife and sister of Osiris.

In classical antiquities the cornucopia, the horn or symbol of plenty, is placed in the hands of emblematical figures of Plenty, Liberality, and the like, who are represented as pouring from it an abundance of fruits or corn. It is frequently used in architecture, sculpture and heraldry.

A redoubtable hero was Berserker in the Scandinavian mythology. He was the father of twelve sons who inherited the name of Berserker, together with his frenzied war-like fury or "berserker rage" Baring Gould connects the name with the were-wolf myth. It literally means "bear-sark" (shirt), not "bare-shirt."

The word hippodrome is derived from the Greek hippos, "a horse," and drotnos, "a racecourse," and is the Greek name for the place set apart for horse and chariot races. Its dimensions were, according to the common opinion, half a mile in length, and one-eighth of a mile in breadth. In construction and all the most important points of arrangement it was the counterpart of the Roman Circus.

The circus originally was an open oblong building for Roman entertainments. There were eight in Rome, the largest being the Circus Maximus, said to be 9,3311/3 feet long and 2,187 feet wide, and able to seat 260,000 persons. There were held in them horse and chariot races, gymnastic contests, the Trojan games, and contests with wild beasts. The modern circus is so universally known as to need no description.

Befana is a kind of Santa Klaus, who visits children on Twelfth Night to put presents in a stocking hung at their bed. Befana, it is said, was an old woman busy cleaning her house when the Magi passed by, but she said she would look out for them on their return. As they went home another way, she is looking out for them still, but entertains a great fondness for young children. The word is a corruption of "Epi-phania" (Epiphany.)

The tall, narrow circular towers - called round towers - tapering gradually from the base to the summit, found abundantly in Ireland, and occasionally in Scotland, are among the earliest and most remarkable relics of the ecclesiastical architecture of the British Islands. They have long been the subject of conjecture and speculation, but there can be now no doubt that they are the work of Christian architects, and built for religious purposes.

Walhalla is the place of residence for the fallen in battle in Scandinavian Mythology. The name Walhalla was given to a magnificent marble structure of nearly the same proportions as the Parthenon, erected by Ludwig I. of Bavaria (1830-41) as a temple of fame for all Germany, on an eminence two hundred and fifty feet above the Danube, near Ratis-bon. By means of statues, busts, reliefs, and tablets the mythology and history of Germany are illustrated, and her greatest names commemor-ated.

Thule was the name given by ancient Greeks and Romans to the most remote northern portion of the world then known. Whether an island or part of a continent nobody knows. It is first mentioned by Pytheas, the Greek navigator, who says it is "six days' sail from Britain," and that its climate is a "mixture of earth, air and sea." Ptolemy, with more exactitude, tells us that the 03° of north latitude runs through the middle of Thule, and adds that " the days there are at the equinoxes [sic] twenty-four hours long." This, of course is a blunder, but the latitude would do roughly for Iceland.

The sacred geese were kept by the ancient Romans in the temple of Juno on the Capitoline Hill. These geese are especially noted in Roman story, because when a party of Gauls climbed stealthily up the steep rock unobserved by the sentinels, and even without disturbing the watch-dogs, the geese gave the alarm by their cackling, and Manlius, being aroused, reached the rampart just in time to push over the foremost Gaul, and thus saved the capitol.

Idris was a mythical figure in Welsh tradition, supposed to have been at once a giant, a prince and an astronomer. On the summit of Cader Idris in Merionethshire may be seen his rock-hewn chair, and an ancient tradition told that any Welsh bard who should pass the night upon it would be found the next morning either dead, mad, or endowed with supernatural poetic inspiration. This tradition forms the subject of a fine poem by Mrs. Hemans; the gigantic size of the chair is alluded to in Tennyson's "Geraint and Enid."