Oberon

Oberon (also spelled Auberon) is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which he is Consort to Titania, Queen of the Fairies.

Merovingian legend

Oberon's status as king of the fairies comes from the character of Alberich (from Old High German alb- "elf" and -rîh-, "ruler", "king"), a sorcerer in the legendary history of the Merovingian dynasty. In the legend, he is the otherworldly "brother" of Merowech, whose name is the eponym of the Merovingians but whose actual existence is unproven. Alberich wins for his eldest son Walbert the hand of a princess of Constantinople. In the Nibelungenlied, a Burgundian poem written around the turn of the 13th century, Alberich guards the treasure of the Nibelungen, but is overcome by Siegfried.

French heroic song

The name Oberon got its literary start in the first half of the 13th century from the fairy dwarf Oberon who helps the hero in the chanson de geste titled Les Prouesses et faitz du noble Huon de Bordeaux. Huon, son of Seguin count of Bordeaux, passed through the forest where he lived. He was warned by a hermit not to speak to Oberon, but his courtesy had him answer Oberon's greetings, and so gain his aid in his quest. Huon had killed Charlot, the Emperor's son, in self-defense, and so he must visit the court of the amir of Babylon and perform various feats to win a pardon. He succeeds only with Oberon's aid.

Oberon (Seyler)

Oberon, or The Elf King (German: Oberon oder König der Elfen), or simply Oberon, originally known as Huon and Amanda (German: Hüon und Amande), is a romantic Singspiel in five acts by Friederike Sophie Seyler, based on the poem Oberon by Christoph Martin Wieland, which itself was based on the epic romance Huon of Bordeaux, a French medieval tale. It has been named for two of its central characters, the knight Huon and the fairy king Oberon, respectively.

The opera was published in "Flensburg, Schleswig and Leipzig" in 1789, the year Seyler died. Seyler was married to the prominent theatre director Abel Seyler, the founder of the Seyler Theatre Company and a noted promoter of both German opera and William Shakespeare. The opera was dedicated to their common long-time friend and collaborator, the actor Friedrich Ludwig Schröder. Seyler's opera and a plagiarized version by Karl Ludwig Giesecke both enjoyed popularity from the late 18th century. The opera was also an important influence on the libretto of The Magic Flute.

Oberon (moon)

Oberon, also designated Uranus IV, is the outermost major moon of the planet Uranus. It is the second-largest and second most massive of the Uranian moons, and the ninth most massive moon in the Solar System. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Oberon is named after the mythical king of the fairies who appears as a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Its orbit lies partially outside Uranus's magnetosphere.

It is likely that Oberon formed from the accretion disk that surrounded Uranus just after the planet's formation. The moon consists of approximately equal amounts of ice and rock, and is probably differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle. A layer of liquid water may be present at the boundary between the mantle and the core. The surface of Oberon, which is dark and slightly red in color, appears to have been primarily shaped by asteroid and comet impacts. It is covered by numerous impact craters reaching 210 km in diameter. Oberon possesses a system of chasmata (graben or scarps) formed during crustal extension as a result of the expansion of its interior during its early evolution.