Chapter XI Conclusion
And when it pleased our Lord to have him depart out of this world, he prayed our Lord that he would send him his angels, and inclining his head, he saw the angels come to him, whereby he knew well that he should depart, and began this holy psalm: In te domine speravi, unto in manus tuas, and so saying: “Lord into thine hands I commend my spirit,” he rendered up his soul and died, the year of our Lord three hundred and forty-three, with great melody sung of the celestial company.
This is the Golden Legend account of the end of the earthly life of the kindly bishop-saint. His body was placed in a tomb of marble, and in the year 1087 was discovered by Italian merchants and borne by them to the city of Bari in Italy. There his tomb is a famous center for pilgrimages. On his festival day, many thousands bearing staves bound with olive and pine honor his memory.112 It is said that when his tomb at Myra was opened, the body was found swimming in oil, and that to this day there continues to issue from his body a holy oil “which is much available to the health and sicknesses of many men.”
St. Nicholas, the guardian of so many things, also keeps guard over his own remains. Wace relates the story of a man carrying off a supposed tooth of the holy saint. In the night St. Nicholas appeared and admonished the thief, and in the morning the tooth was gone.
St. Nicholas was mortal. But his deeds are immortal. His beneficent acts have flowered in legendary story and have found fruition in universal popular customs animated by the same spirit of kindness that pervaded the whole life of the saint. Probably the life history of no other person, save that of the Founder of Christianity himself, has been so intimately woven about human custom and human life as that of St. Nicholas. In certain parts of Siberia he is worshiped as a god. Even in our own country, although we are supposed to have outgrown idolatry, representations of Santa Claus about Christmas time, in shop windows and on street corners, are objects of worship little short of idolatry. To Santa Claus also at Christmas time are addressed the most sincere, even if not the most unselfish, supplications.
We may well conclude our present consideration of St. Nicholas and his works with an invocation to him, using the words composed by the recluse Godric, back in the twelfth century, which form one of the very earliest of English lyrics:
Sainte Nicholaes, godes druth,
Tymbre us faire scone hus—
At thi burth, at thi bare—
Sainte Nicholaes, bring us wel thare.
Chapter I
1 Manchester Guardian.
2 A. Tille, Die Geschichte der Deutschen Weihnacht, Leipzig, 1893, p. 30.
3 O. von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Traditions et Légendes de la Belgique, p. 302.
4 Do., p. 323.
5 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr der germanischen Völker, Leipzig, 1863, pp. 360 ff.
6 Do., pp. 362, 363.
7 P.M. Hough, Dutch Life in Town and Country, London and New York, 1901, pp. 116 ff. The present account of St. Nicholas customs in Holland is based on notes from the book by Hough, but is not quoted exactly in order of details nor in wording.
8 Do., p. 121.
9 I. von Zingerle, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, ii., 329 ff.
10 Hough, op. cit., p. 117.
11 Do., p. 125.
12 Do., p. 125.
13 I. von Zingerle, op. cit., p. 343.
14 Hough, op. cit., p. 125.
15 Do., p. 126.
16 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr, p. 362.
17 Tille, op. cit., p. 35.
18 Brand, Popular Antiquities, i., p. 420.
19 Tille, op. cit., p. 299.
20 Do., p. 36.
21 Do., p. 33.
22 Do., p. 36.
23 Do., p. 202.
24 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr, p. 382; C. A. Miles, Christmas, London, 1912, p. 231.
25 St. Nicholas, Our Holidays, New York, 1916, p. 64.
26 W. A. Wheeler, Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction, Boston, 1883.
27 Tille, op. cit., p. 119.
28 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, op. cit., p. 342.
29 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, quoted by Miles, op. cit., p. 277, footnote.
30 Hough, op. cit., p. 120.
Chapter II
31 G. de Saint Laurent, Guide de l’Art Chrétien, 1874, v., p. 349.
32 A. Butler, Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and other Principal Saints, London, 1838.
33 New York Times, Oct. 24, 1915.
34 Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, vol. ii.
Chapter III
35 The Golden Legend, Caxton translation, Temple Classics series, vol. ii., pp. 109-122.
36 Do., pp. 119, 120.
37 Mrs. Jameson, op. cit.; also H. Thode, Franz von Assisi, Berlin, 1904.
38 C. Cahier, Caractéristiques des saints dans l’art populaire, Paris, 1867, vol. i.
39 E. Anichkof, “St. Nicholas and Artemis,” Folk-Lore, v., pp. 108 ff.
40 Hough, op. cit., p. 122.
41 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 417.
Chapter IV
42 Tille, op. cit., p. 32.
43 Do., p. 300.
44 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 420.
45 R. T. Hampson, Medii Aevi Kalendarium, London, 1841, ii., p. 76.
46 T. Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton Club, 1856, p. 4.
47 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 421.
48 Brady, Clavis Calendaria, quoted by W. Hone, The Every-Day Book, London, 1838.
49 New York Times, April 18, 1915.
50 Mrs. Jameson, op. cit.
51 Brand, op. cit., ii., p. 356.
52 Encyclopedia Britannica, article “Pawnbrokers.”
53 Cf. the story of the Jew who left his property under the protection of the image of St. Nicholas.
Chapter V
54 Galleria antica e moderna.
55 C. A. Miles, op. cit., p. 168.
56 A. F. Leach, “The Schoolboy’s Feast,” Fortnightly Review, vol. lix., pp. 128-141.
57 E. K. Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, London, 1903, i., p. 294. The total amount of the debt to Chambers’s work it has not been possible to indicate in these notes.
58 Do., p. 357.
59 Do., p. 348.
60 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 423.
61 Chambers, op. cit., p. 338.
62 Tille, op. cit., p. 31, quoted by Chambers.
63 Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Traditions et Légendes de la Belgique, p. 348.
64 Leach, op. cit.
Chapter VI
65 H. Thode, Franz von Assisi, Berlin, 1909.
66 Verses 1080-1143.
67 Verses 208-216.
68 M. Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 47, 48.
Chapter VII
69 G. R. Coffman, A New Theory concerning the Origin of the Miracle Play, Univ. of Chicago diss., 1914.
70 Henry Morley, English Writers, 1889, vol. iii., pp. 105-114.
71 E. Du Meril, Les Origines Latines du Théâtre Moderne, new edition, Paris, 1897, pp. 272-276.
72 C. M. Gayley, Plays of our Forefathers, New York, 1907, p. 64.
73 Du Meril, op. cit., pp. 276-284.
74 Gaston Paris, La littérature française au Moyen-Age, Paris, 1890, §167.
75 W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, Halle, 1893, i., pp. 139-141.
Chapter VIII
76 E. Bisland and A. Hoyt, Seekers in Sicily.
77 Brand, op. cit., pp. 363, 364.
78 Do., pp. 363, 364.
79 H. F. Feilberg, Jul, Copenhagen, 1909, i., p. 105.
80 C. Cahier, op. cit.
81 This additional list is derived from somewhat scattered references in works cited above by Brand and by Cahier.
82 M. Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 29, 30.
83 E. Anichkof, op. cit., pp. 108 ff.
84 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 419.
85 Anichkof, op. cit.
86 Zingerle, op. cit., p. 334.
87 Anichkof, op. cit., p. 109.
88 First part of Henry IV., Act II., scene i.
89 Brand, op. cit., i., p. 418. Cf. also the Oxford Dictionary under Nicholas.
90 T. Wright, op. cit., p. 99.
Chapter IX
91 M. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 16.
92 Do., p. 13.
93 Do., p. 18.
94 Do., p. 20.
95 Do., p. 33.
96 Do., p. 34.
97 Do., p. 31.
98 J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folk-Lore and Ancient Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1910, p. 135.
99 M. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 30.
100 E. Anichkof, op. cit., p. 114.
101 Do., pp. 115, 116.
102 Hampson, op. cit., p. 68.
103 Keightley, Fairy Mythology, i., pp. 234, 235, quoted by Hampson, op. cit., p. 75.
104 Revue des traditions populaires, i., p. 7, quoted by Anichkof.
105 This is the main thesis of the article by Anichkof.
106 J. W. Wolf, Hocker, and Al Kaufmann, quoted by Zingerle, op. cit., p. 331.
107 A. Tille, Yule and Christmas, London, 1899, p. 115; H. Feilberg, Jul, Copenhagen, 1904, ii., p. 179.
108 C. A. Miles, op. cit., p. 221.
Chapter X
109 C. Cahier, op. cit.
110 Wace, op. cit., vv. 342 ff.
111 J. V. Jarnik, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, ii., pp. 348, 349.