... The mother of the Baptist was not canonized in the West, though, I believe, she was so in the East, for there arose her first historical namesake, the Muscovite princess Elisavetta, the daughter of Jaroslav, and the object of the romantic love of that splendid poet and sea-king, Harald Hardràda, of Norway, who sung nineteen songs of his own composition in her praise on his way to her from Constantinople, and won her hand by feats of prowess.  Although she soon died, her name remained in the northern peninsula, and figures in many a popular tale and Danish ballad, as Elsebin, Lisbet, or Helsa.  It was the Slavonic nations, however, who first brought it into use, and from them it crept into Germany, and thence to the Low Countries... (History of Christian Names, Yonge, 1884)