OCTROI 



5822 



ODENWALD 



it can swim backwards by forcibly 

 expelling water from its syphon. 

 The female produces about 50,000 

 eggs in the season. These resemble 

 grains of rice, and are attached in 

 stalked clusters to rocks and stones. 

 On the Mediterranean shores and 

 in the Channel Islands the octopus 

 is dried and used for food. See 

 Animal, colour plate ; Cephalopoda. 



Octroi (Fr. octroyer, to grant). 

 French name for a local tax, one 

 in the nature of an import duty. 

 Roman in origin, the custom took 

 root in France, but its modern use 

 dates from the 12th century. Many 

 cities and towns obtained from the 

 king the right to levy octroi duties 

 and retained it until the Revolu- 

 tion. They were paid on goods sold 

 in their markets or entering their 

 town. A percentage of the duties 

 was usually paid to the national 

 treasury, and they were let out to 

 farmers. The octroi was abolished 

 in 1791, but restored in 1798 to 

 Paris, and later to other cities, under 

 conditions which have been several 

 times revised. The system obtains 

 in some places in Italy and Spain. 

 It was abolished in Belgium in 

 1860, and in Great Britain never 

 found favour, though the coal and 

 wine dues which were levied at one 

 time on goods entering the port 

 of London were of the nature of 

 octroi. See Customs; Taxation. 



Odde. Village and tourist resort 

 of Norway. It stands at the S. end 

 of the Sor Fiord, an arm of the 

 Hardanger Fiord, and is the ter- 

 minus of the routes from Tele- 

 marken and Stavanger Fiord. * 



Oddfellows , ORDER OF. Frater- 

 nal benevolent society. Founded 

 early in the 18th century, when it 

 was mentioned by Defoe, the earli- 

 est known lodge was existing in 

 London in 1745. Members were 

 assisted in sickness or poverty 

 from lodge funds. In the latter 

 half of the century the order was 

 proscribed as seditious, but in 1813 

 a great revival took place at Man- 

 chester, where the Independent 

 Order of Oddfellows, Manchester 

 Unity, was founded. This speedily 

 absorbed most of the minor lodges 

 in Great Britain, and in 1819 

 spread to the U.S.A. Daughter 

 organizations have been established 

 in most civilized countries. See 

 Friendly Societies. 



Ode (Gr. chant). In its literal 

 sense, any poem written to be sung 

 to musical accompaniment. The 

 Greek ode developed along two 

 wholly different lines. As the sub- 

 jective expression of personal 

 emotion it was moulded by Alcaeus, 

 Anacreon, and Sappho into the 

 lyrical stanzas still known by 

 their names, adapted with ex- 

 quisite perfection to the genius of 



the Latin language by Catullus 

 and Horace, and reproduced in an 



of the Ferto, and is a rly. junction 

 for Vienna, 51 m. by rly. to the 



infinite variety of graceful shapes N.W. The chief buildings are the 



by lyrists of every cultured race. 

 As the ritual hymn solemnly 



Dominican church of the 17th 

 century, the Benedictine church 



chanted by the chorus at festivals of the 13th century, the town hall, 

 primarily religious in intention, which houses a museum, and the 



town tower, 200 ft. high. The site 



the ode was developed by Stesi- 

 chorus, Simonides, and Bacchy- 

 lides, and brought to its finest 

 perfection of structure and fiery 

 splendour by Pindar. 

 " It is to the stately choric com- 

 position that the word ode is now 

 more generally applied. But while 

 many poets, impressed by the 

 majesty and the concurrent exuber- 

 ance of the Pindaric ode, have 

 sought to capture its spirit and ac- 

 climatise it in their own country, 

 few have had the perception and 

 the learning necessary to analyse 

 its composition and master the in- 

 tricate detail of its technical struc- 

 ture. The earliest Stesichorean 

 ode, with its division into strophe, 



has been identified as that of the 

 Roman Sopronium. Pop. 33,900. 



Odankirchen. Town of Prussia, 

 in the Rhine prov. It is on the 

 Niers and the Glatibach-Stolberg 

 rly., 21 m. S.W. of Dusseldorf. It 

 has a seminary for teachers, an 

 agricultural school, and weaving 

 and spinning factories. Pop. 21,000. 



Odense (Odins-d, i.e. Odin's 

 Island). City of Denmark, capital 

 of Funen, and third largest city in 

 the kingdom. Situated near the 

 mouth of the river Odense, and 

 connected with Odense Fiord by a 

 ship canal, it has a good harbour, 

 a castle, museum, technical schools, 

 seminary, and a park. Thecathe- 



antistrophe, and epode, has been dral of S. Knud, founded 1086, is 



reproduced with considerable suc- 

 cess by several poets, Congreve, 

 Gray, and Matthew Arnold among 

 them. The true Pindaric ode 

 still remains a thing apart, un- 



one of the finest Gothic edifices in 

 Denmark ; the church of Our Lady 

 dates from the 12th century. A 

 fine town, with a modern town 

 hall, it is lighted by electricity. 



matched. Meanwhile, though his Cloth, glass, chemicals, and tobacco 

 odes were not Pindaric at all, are manufactured, and grain, eggs, 



and other dairy 

 hides exported. 



Cowley by his Pindaric Odes was 

 instrumental in the creation of a 

 literary form, now generally called 



butter, bacon 

 produce, and 

 Odense was the meeting-place of 



the irregular ode, very suitable to several diets and councils, and the 



the English genius, and put to 

 triumphant use by Milton, Dryden, 

 Wordsworth, Ten- 

 nyson, and by 

 Francis Thompson 

 in The Hound of 

 Heaven. See 

 Pindar ; Poetry ; 

 consult also Eng- 

 lish Odes, E. W. 

 Gosse, 1881. 



Odenathus . 

 Prince of Palmyra, 

 and husband of the 

 more famous Zeno- 

 bia. After the de- 

 feat of the army of 

 the Roman emper- 

 or Valerian by the 

 Persians, he organ- 

 ized a successful resistance, and in a 

 series of campaigns from 262 to 

 264 restored Mesopotamia to Rome, 

 and carried his arms as far as Ctesi- 

 phon. For these services he was 

 rewarded by Valerian's successor 

 Gallienus with the title of Impera- 

 tor, but was shortly afterwards 

 assassinated. His widow, Zenobia, 

 reigned as queen after his death. 



Odenburg. Town of Hungary. 



birthplace of Hans Andersen, 

 whose house has been converted 



Odense, Denmark. House where Hans Christian 

 Andersen was born 



into a museum. Pop. 45,300. See 

 Andersen, H. C. 



Odenwald. Wooded mt. region 

 in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany. It 

 stretches between the Neckar and 

 the Main. Composed of basalt, 

 gneiss, granite, and syenite, the 

 mts. have many valleys and ravines. 

 The highest peak, the Katzen- 

 buckel, is 2,057 ft. in alt. and has 

 an observation tower Odenwald 



It was formerly the chief town in is a populous region and there are 

 W. Hungary, being in the area castles and hamlets in the valleys, 

 where the bulk of the people are 

 Germans ; the official Magyar 



name was then Sopron. It lies W. 



The Bergstrasse .on the W. Oden- 

 wald is rich in legend and is men- 

 tioned in the Nibelungenlied (q.v.). 



