diff --git a/src/xpath.cpp b/src/xpath.cpp
index 40ab734..ca67b8f 100644
--- a/src/xpath.cpp
+++ b/src/xpath.cpp
@@ -59,11 +59,14 @@ namespace duck {
 		BatchResults retval;
 		try {
 			AutoDelete<DynamicContext> context(xqilla.createContext(XQilla::XQUERY_UPDATE, &xconfig));
+			//see http://xqilla.sourceforge.net/docs/simple-api/classStaticContext.html#adc869a84712459fa49db67fe837c9b01
+			context->setDefaultElementAndTypeNS(u"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml");
 			Node::Ptr ptr = context->parseDocument(input_buf);
 			context->setContextItem(ptr);
 
 			for (const auto& xpath : parQueries) {
-				AutoDelete<XQQuery> query(xqilla.parse(X(xpath.c_str())));
+				AutoDeleteArray<XMLCh> xpath_wide = xercesc::XMLString::transcode(xpath.c_str());
+				AutoDelete<XQQuery> query(xqilla.parse(xpath_wide, context, nullptr, XQilla::NO_ADOPT_CONTEXT));
 				context->setContextPosition(1);
 				context->setContextSize(1);