Chapter Berkeley to Bertoldo's Son of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Bernitia with Deira constituted Northumbria. Bernitia included West-moreland, Durham, and part of Cumber-land. Deira contained the other part of Cumberland, with Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Two kingdoms which had been with several thrones enstalled. Bernitia hight the one. Diera [sic]th’ other called.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, xvi. (1613).

Berrathon, an island of Scandinavia.

Berserker, grandson o f the eighthanded Starkader and the beautiful Alfhilêe. He was so called because he wore “no shirt of mail,” but went to battle unharnessed. He married the daughter of Swafurlam, and had twelve sons. (Bœr-syrce, Anglo-Saxon, “bare of shirt;” Scotch, “bare-sark.”)

You say that I am a Berserker, and … bare-sark I go to-morrow to the war, and bare-sark I win that war or die.—Rev. C. Kingsley: Hereward the Wake, i. 247.

BERTHA, the supposed daughter of Vandunke burgomaster of Bruges, and mistress of Goswin a rich merchant of the same city. In reality, Bertha is the duke of Brabant’s daughter Gertrude, and Goswin is Florez, son of Gerrard king of the beggars.—Fletcher: The Beggars’ Bush (1622).

Bertha, daughter of Burkhard duke of the Alemanni, and wife of Rudolf II. king of Burgundy beyond Jura. She is represented on monuments of the time as sitting on her throne spinning.

You are the beautiful Bertha the Spinner, the queen of Helvetia; … Who as she rode on her palfrey, o’er valley and meadow and mountain,
Ever was spinning her thread from the distaff fixed to her saddle.
She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed into a proverb.
   —Longfellow: Courtship of Miles Standish, viii.

Bertha, alias Agatha, the betrothed of Hereward one of the emperor’s Varangian guards. The novel concludes with Hereward enlisting under the banner of count Robert, and marrying Bertha.—Sir W. Scott: Count Robert of Paris (time, Rufus).

Bertha, the betrothed of John of Leyden. When she went with her mother to ask count Oberthal’s permission to marry, the count resolved to make his pretty vassal his mistress, and confined her in his castle. She made her escape and went to Munster, intending to set fire to the palace of “the prophet,” who, she thought, had caused the death of her lover. Being seized and brought before the prophet, she recognized in him her lover, and exclaiming, “I loved thee once, but now my love is turned to hate,” stabbed herself and died.—Meyerbeer: Le Prophète (an opera, 1849).

Bertha, the blind daughter of Caleb Plummer, in Dickens’s Christmas story The Cricket on the Hearth (1845).

Berthe au Grand-Pied, mother of Charlemagne, so called from a club-foot.

Bertold (St.), the first prior-general of Carmel (1073–1188). We are told in the Bréviare des Carmes that the goodness of this saint so spiritualized his face that it seemed actually luminous: “son âme se reflétait sur sa figure qui paraissait comme environnée des rayons de soleil.”

Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on thoutward shape …
And turn it by degrees to the soul’s essence.
   —Milton: Comus.

Bertoldo (Prince), a knight of Malta, and brother of Roberto king of the Two Sicilies. He is in love with Camiola “the maid of honour,” but could not marry without a dispensation from the pope. While matters were at this crisis, Berto ldo laid siege to Sienna, and was taken prisoner. Camiola paid his ransom, but before he was released the duchess Aurelia requested him to be brought before her. Immediately the duchess saw him, she fell in love with him, and offered him marriage; and Bertoldo, forgetful of Camiola, accepted the offer. The betrothed then presented themselves before the king. Here Camiola exposed