Ariel

Ariel, a man's name in the Old Testament, applied also to the city of Jerusalem by Isaiah. Gesenius, Ewald, and Fürst explain the word as 'lion of God,' but most of the ancient Jewish expositors as 'hearth of God.' In later demonology, it means a water-spirit. Thomas Heywood and Milton apply it to an angel. The literary currency of the name is due to Shakespeare's use of it in his Tempest as a name for a particular spirit of the air. At first in the service of the witch Sycorax, mother of Caliban, for his disobedience he is shut up by his mistress in the heart of a pine-tree. Prospero frees him after his imprisonment has lasted twelve years, uses his aid to raise storms, then lets him free into his native element.