Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible. The Council of Nicaea is referred to as the Council of
Nice: this has been left unchanged. Some changes have been made.
They are listed at the end of the text. Illustrations have been
moved.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
[Illustration: G. da Fabriano. St. Nicholas with Conventional Emblems
along with Mary Magdalene, St. John, and St. George.
Alinari]
St. Nicholas
His Legend and His Rôle in the Christmas
Celebration and Other Popular
Customs
By
George H. McKnight
_Illustrated_
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1917
COPYRIGHT, 1917
BY
GEORGE H. MCKNIGHT
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PREFACE
A few years ago, while trying to trace the history of certain Christmas
customs, I was unavoidably brought into contact with St. Nicholas. A
closer acquaintance with that amiable personality was the result, and
acquaintance gradually deepened into veneration and affection. In the
same year in which began my closer acquaintance with St. Nicholas,
I was so fortunate as to be brought face to face with some of the
quaint pictures in which Italian painters, with so much charm, have
represented the various episodes in the life of the saint. I was led to
believe that others would enjoy the pictures, not all of them readily
accessible, and that a wider knowledge of St. Nicholas would greatly
enlarge the circle of his friends. The present book was the result.
My aim has been, not to offer an exhaustive study of all the difficult
questions that are connected with the name of St. Nicholas, but to
bring together, from somewhat scattered sources, the elements in his
life story. The kindly acts recorded of him have lived in popular
memory and have flowered into some of the most generally cherished of
popular customs. In St. Nicholas the reader will come in contact with a
personality of unique amiability, whose influence has permeated popular
customs for many centuries and has contributed much of sweetness to
human life.
My original contribution to the subject has been slight. In the notes I
have attempted to indicate my indebtedness to other writers, although
the amount of this debt I have not been able adequately to show. To the
artists who have represented with feeling and with charm the scenes in
the life of St. Nicholas, this book is most indebted, and for them I
wish to bespeak a major part of the reader’s attention.
G. H. McK.
COLUMBUS, O.,
_July 16, 1917_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE iii
CHAPTER
I.--ST. NICHOLAS, SANTA CLAUS, AND KRIS KRINGLE 1
II.--BIOGRAPHY AND LEGEND 28
III.--THE BOY ST. NICHOLAS AND ST. NICHOLAS THE
PATRON SAINT OF SCHOOLBOYS 37
IV.--ST. NICHOLAS AND THE DOWERLESS MAIDENS 53
V.--THE BOY BISHOP, OR NICHOLAS BISHOP 66
VI.--VARIED BENEFICENT ACTIVITY 79
VII.--ST. NICHOLAS PLAYS 89
VIII.--ST. NICHOLAS AS PATRON SAINT 112
IX.--PAGAN HERITAGE OF ST. NICHOLAS 125
X.--ST. NICHOLAS, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH 141
XI.--CONCLUSION 146
NOTES 149
ILLUSTRATIONS
ST. NICHOLAS AND OTHER SAINTS _Frontispiece_
Gentile da Fabriano. (Florence.)
FACING PAGE
ST. NICHOLAS IN EAST FRISIA 12
Reproduced from Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_.
CHRISTKINDCHEN (KRIS KRINGLE) AND HANS TRAPP IN ALSACE 18
Reproduced from Reinsberg-Düringsfeld.
ST. NICHOLAS SCENES IN THE STAINED GLASS OF BOURGES CATHEDRAL 34
From P. Lacroix, _Science and Art in the Middle Ages_.
THREE SCENES FROM THE EARLY LIFE OF ST. NICHOLAS 38
Beato Angelico. (Rome.)
THE YOUNG CLERK STRANGLED BY THE DEVIL 42
A. Lorenzetti. (Florence.)
ST. NICHOLAS RESTORING A BOY TO HIS FATHER 46
Fresco at S. Croce, Florence.
ST. NICHOLAS AND THE MURDERED SCHOOLBOYS 48
L. di Bicci. (Metropolitan Museum, New York.)
ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE SAME SCENE 50
F. Pesellino. (Florence.)
ST. NICHOLAS AND THE THREE MAIDENS 52
A. Lorenzetti. (Florence.)
ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE SAME SCENE 54
Florentine School. (Louvre, Paris.)
ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE SAME SCENE 56
L. di Bicci (?). (Metropolitan Museum, New York.)
MADONNA AND CHILD AND VARIOUS SAINTS 60
L. di Bicci. (Florence.)
ST. NICHOLAS AND THE MONEY LENDER 64
Fresco at S. Croce, Florence.
THE BOY NICHOLAS ELECTED BISHOP 68
A. Lorenzetti. (Florence.)
ST. NICHOLAS SAVING THE CITY IN TIME OF FAMINE 80
A. Lorenzetti. (Florence.)
NORMAN BAPTISMAL FONT AT WINCHESTER 84
ST. NICHOLAS SAVES THE KNIGHTS ABOUT TO BE BEHEADED 86
F. Pesellino. (Florence.)
TRIUMPHAL CAR OF ST. LUCY AT SYRACUSE IN SICILY 112
IMAGES OF BRETON SAINTS 116
ST. NICHOLAS SAVES THE CITY FROM FAMINE 118
Beato Angelico. (Rome.)
ST. NICHOLAS RESCUES SEAMEN 122
L. Monaco. (Florence.)
ST. NICHOLAS IN THE MOSAICS OF ST. MARK’S IN VENICE 142
ST. NICHOLAS
CHAPTER I
ST. NICHOLAS, SANTA CLAUS, AND KRIS KRINGLE
The good St. Nicholas, the bishop-saint, is strangely little known
in America. He has lent his name to a church here and there and to a
popular magazine for children, his protégés. But how many people are
familiar with the story of his life? How many even know the date of his
own special festival? There are countries in which his memory is not
thus neglected, in which the festival of St. Nicholas is one of the
important events of the year. An English newspaper of the first year of
the war has this to report concerning the Belgian custom:
The feast of St. Nicholas, December 6th, was celebrated at the
Belgian refugee camp at Earle’s Court, England, with presents for
the children, stockings hung up, a Christmas tree, and all the rest
of the children’s festivities which we associate with Christmas
eve and Christmas morning. This was not a mere anticipation of
Christmas. St. Nicholas’ day, and not Christmas, is the children’s
festival in Holland, Belgium, and parts of Germany, and we have
borrowed the hanging up of stockings from them and turned it into a
Christmas custom.[1]
Letters from Belgian children, exiled in France for more than two
years, offer further evidence of the intimate and friendly relationship
existing between St. Nicholas and his Belgian children. Here is a
touching passage from a letter written by a little eight-year-old
Belgian girl from Varengeville-sur-Mer, in France, to an American
“godmother”; the adult English used in translation fails to reproduce
the naïve charm of the original.
We have just had a grand visit from St. Nicholas. He came in person
to bring us some nice things as he used to do when we were home.
We were playing when, all at once, we heard singing at one side
and saw a bishop, ringing a bell. What joy, it is St. Nicholas! We
kneeled down to receive his blessing, and then sang a song and went
into the house. St. Nicholas talked to us and, best of all, he gave
us some presents. He gave us an orange, a barley sweet, a cake, and
some games. My, how happy we were!
GERMAINE BARBEZ.
Le 16 dec., 1916.
Another little girl, a little older, writes from the same place of ‘how
the “grand Saint Nicholas” has gone out of his way to come to see the
Belgian children on December sixth, and how he delivered admonitions
to various boys and girls but did not fail to distribute among them
dainties much appreciated by all, big and little.’
The importance of St. Nicholas in Belgian life is evident. His festival
day too, the celebration of which is so deeply rooted as not to lose
its life in an atmosphere of exile and painful memory, has continued
to hold an important place in the year’s life not only of Belgium but,
as remains to be seen, of Holland. At one time the celebration of St.
Nicholas’ day seems to have been general in most of western Europe.
There is plentiful record of the earlier popularity of this celebration
in all the southern and western parts of the countries occupied by
the peoples speaking the Teutonic languages. It can be traced from
Holland and Belgium, through eastern France, the Rhine provinces,
Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine, through Switzerland, both French and
German, as far east as the Tyrol and Salzburg, including on the way
Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria, in Germany.[2] In northern Germany,
Protestantism, with its aversion to saint worship, was hostile to the
St. Nicholas celebration. Also the growing concentration on Christmas
day of the different winter popular celebrations, and especially
the rapid rise in importance, during the last two centuries, of the
Christmas tree, have caused the St. Nicholas customs, in many places,
to be absorbed into the Christmas celebration, in other places, to
go quite out of use. But popular customs seem to be to some extent
affected by political boundaries, and in two of the smaller countries
of western Europe, Belgium and Holland, the St. Nicholas customs still
retain much of their earlier vigor.
In Belgium, St. Nicholas has long been among the most venerated of
saints, hardly second to St. Martin. In the whole country there are
one hundred and six churches in his honor.[3] Besides he is the patron
saint of many trades and crafts, for example, of the boatmen in cities
on the Meuse, of sawyers, dyers, turners, and haberdashers at Bruges,
of seedmen, packers, and coopers at Liège, of haberdashers and mercers
at Malines. But above all he is the protector and the corrector of
children.
The children’s festival at Christmas time does not exist in Belgium.
The _grand réveillon_, the great Christmas feast of southern
France, which leads children to call Christmas the “day when one
eats so much,” the English Christmas, with its life and gayety and
open hospitality, have nothing corresponding at Christmas time in
Belgium,[4] where the celebration of Christmas is confined almost
entirely to services in the church. In place of the Christmas gayeties
of other countries, Belgium has its St. Nicholas festival. St.
Nicholas’ day throughout the whole country is a day of joy, especially
for the young. Even the German Christmas tree, which has been gradually
finding its way into Belgium, is introduced not on Christmas day, but
on December 6th, the day devoted to the honor of the popular saint.
A writer of about fifty years back thus describes the joyous
celebration of St. Nicholas’ day by Belgian children of that time.
“Weeks beforehand, children full of impatience, before going to sleep
ask: ‘How many times must I go to sleep before he comes?’ They sing to
him as soon as it is dark, and they see him in their dreams, giving
them gifts or punishment, according as they have been good or naughty.
Occasionally they are made happy by a little gift that comes down the
chimney into a pinafore hung up to receive it, or is found accidentally
in the corner of the room. A joyful ‘Thank you, Saint Nicholas’ greets
each such gift. Each evening every corner of the room is searched, and
the children sing with fervor their petition, one Flemish version of
which begins:
‘Sint Niklaes, Gods heilge man,
Doe uwen besten tabbaerd aen,
En rydt er mee naer spanje
Om appelen van Oranje
Om peeren van den boom.’”
In one of the versions of this children’s song the supplication is
addressed to “Sinte Niklaes van Tolentyn,” a saint quite distinct from
Saint Nicholas of Bari, the recognized patron of children, but the
heavenly postal arrangements seem to be effectively organized, for, so
far as known, the wrong address used, in no way prevents the desired
response from their special protector and friend.
On the eve of his festival day, St. Nicholas makes his tour, visiting
palace and cottage. Frequently in the early evening he makes a
preliminary visit in bishop’s robes, with pastoral staff and miter, at
each house making inquiries concerning the conduct of the children,
giving appropriate praise or warning, and promising on the following
morning to give more substantial reward. When he is gone, the children
place receptacles for the gifts which St. Nicholas is expected to let
fall down the chimney. The receptacle varies in different places.
Sometimes shoes are neatly polished for the purpose,[5] at other times
plates or baskets or stockings or specially made shoes of porcelain
are set on the bed, in the open chimney, before the door of a room,
or merely in the corner of a room. St. Nicholas’ steed, variously
conceived of as gray horse or white ass, is not forgotten. For him
the children put water and hay or carrot or potato peeling or piece
of bread, in the shoe or basket or stocking. In the morning, from the
tipped-over chairs and general disarray in the room, it is evident that
St. Nicholas has been present. Replacing the oats or hay or carrot are
found sweets and playthings for children that have been good, obedient,
and studious during the year.[6] In the case of bad children, rods are
left, and the fodder is untouched.
A recent writer has given a highly interesting account[7] of the
similar celebration at the present day in Holland, where St. Nicholas’
day has the same importance as in Belgium.
St. Nicholas’ eve is a time of great importance to children because
at that time they receive a visit from the saint, and his arrival
is looked forward to with trembling. A large white sheet is placed
on the floor in the middle of the room, and the children stand
about anxiously watching the slow movement of the hands of the
clock. In the meantime some of the elder members of the family
dress up so as to represent St. Nicholas and his black servant. At
five minutes before the expected time, for St. Nicholas generally
announces at what time he may be expected, they sing songs asking
him to give liberally as is his wont, and praising his greatness
and goodness in eloquent terms. The first intimation of his arrival
is a shower of sweets on the sheet spread on the floor. Then,
amid the ensuing scramble, St. Nicholas appears in full bishop’s
vestments, laden with presents, while in the rear comes his black
servant with an open sack in one hand, for naughty boys and girls,
and in the other a rod which he shakes vigorously from time to
time. St. Nicholas usually knows the shortcomings of individual
children, and on his departure gives each an appropriate lecture,
promising to return later. Sometimes he makes the children repeat a
verse to him or asks about their lessons.
The mysterious events of the ensuing night closely parallel those
recorded for Belgium. St. Nicholas’ robe, his “beste tabbaerd,” enables
him to pass from place to place instantaneously. But in his nightly
journey over the roofs of houses, he uses a horse which the children
of Holland, like those of Belgium, remember by leaving a wisp of hay
for his use.[8] If, for some reason, on account of lack of time or of
money, the parents have neglected to buy gifts, the children say, “St.
Nicholas’ horse has glass legs; he has slipped down and broken his
foot.”[9]
But the joys of St. Nicholas’ eve in Holland are not confined to
children. It is a time, like the Christmas season in England, for
family reunions and the renewal of old memories, also for the giving of
presents. But the manner of the Dutch gift-giving has its distinctive
features, for:
St. Nicholas’ presents must be hidden and disguised as much as
possible and be accompanied by rhymes explaining what the gift is,
and for whom St. Nicholas intended it. Sometimes a parcel addressed
to one person will finally turn out to be for quite a different
member of the family from the one who first received it. For the
address on each wrapper in various stages of wrapping, makes it
necessary for the parcel to change hands as many times as there are
papers to undo. Tiniest things are sent in immense packing cases.
Sometimes the gifts are baked in a loaf of bread or hidden in a
turf. The longer it takes to find the present, the greater the
surprise.
Great delight is taken in concealing the identity of the giver as
long as possible. Even if the gift comes from a member of the same
household, before the parcel is brought in, the doorbell is rung by
a servant in order to create the impression that the parcel has
come from an outsider. For the same purpose a parcel for a friend’s
house is often entrusted to a passer-by.
On the evening of the celebration, after St. Nicholas has said his
adieux, promising to come again, the children are packed away to
bed, and the older people have their special amusement. They sit
about a table in the middle of the room and partake of tea and
“speculaas,” a spice cake bearing a great picture of St. Nicholas,
until their own surprises begin to arrive. When this part of the
program is over, about ten o’clock, the room is cleared; the dust
sheet laid down for the children’s scramble, is removed, the
papers, boxes, baskets, and the like, used in packing the presents,
are cleared away. The table is spread with a white tablecloth, and
when all have taken seats, a dish of boiled chestnuts, steaming
hot, is brought in and eaten with butter and salt.[10]
Belgium and Holland have their special forms of cakes and sweetmeats
for the St. Nicholas season. In Holland these are the flat hard cakes
called “Klaasjes”[11] once made exclusively in the form of a bishop
in honor of the bishop St. Nicholas, but now made in forms of every
conceivable kind of beast, bird, or fish. In certain places on the
Rhine the figure of the saint himself, the “Klasmann,” is baked in
dough with currant eyes, or an especially palatable little horse is
formed of honey cake dough and the “Klas” is inlaid on the horse.
Then there is the “Letterbanket” made in the form of letters so that
one may order his name in cake, and the “Marsepein,” now made in a
great variety of forms, but formerly made only in heart-shaped sweets
ornamented with little turtle doves made of pink sugar or with a
flaming heart on a little altar. The “Marsepein” was formerly used as a
device in wooing. The young man sent “Marsepein”[12] with a “Vryer” of
cake to the young lady of his heart, and if she accepted, he knew his
cause was won.
There are also various accounts of the way the cakes are made. In
Vorarlberg if, on the morning of St. Nicholas’ day, mist is seen to
rise, one tells the children that St. Nicholas is baking his cakes,
“Zelten” or “Klösse.” All the different figures found on the “Zelten”
have been made by St. Nicholas’ ass stepping on them with his shoes.
Another explanation of the origin of the cakes has more direct relation
with the life story of the saint. The story is told that the three
maidens rescued from shame by St. Nicholas--whose story remains to be
told in a later chapter--at their marriage, out of gratitude, baked
triple kneaded rolls and distributed them among poor children.[13]
Outside the homes, the time about St. Nicholas’ day in Belgium and
Holland is one of unusual life and gayety.
The old-time St. Nicholas fairs are no longer held in the streets,
at any rate, not in the large towns of Holland, but exchange of
presents is as universal as ever, and the shops are as festive
in appearance as American shops at Christmas time.[14] New
attractions for children are offered each year. Life-sized figures
of St. Nicholas are frequent in front of shop windows, and some
establishments have a man dressed like the good saint, who goes
about the streets mounted on a white steed, while behind him
follows a cart laden with presents to be delivered. Crowds of
children, singing, shouting, and clapping their hands, follow.[15]
An older authority records concerning Belgium that often in country
districts this or that peasant makes up as a long-bearded man or bishop
and rides through the dark streets on a gray horse, or an ass, or a
wooden horse, with a great basket at his side and a bundle of whips in
his hand.[16]
[Illustration: St. Nicholas in East Frisia.
Reproduced from Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_.]
In no countries besides Belgium and Holland is the celebration of St.
Nicholas’ day so widely prevalent to-day. But, as already remarked,
in earlier times the celebration of St. Nicholas’ day was popular in
many parts of Teutonic Europe, particularly in Austria, Switzerland,
and southern Germany. In various parts of these countries the old St.
Nicholas customs still maintain a vigorous existence. In Württemberg
and Baden, children on St. Nicholas’ day receive gifts from their
godparents. In Switzerland the gifts are brought by “Samiklaus,” in the
Tyrol by the “Holy Man,” in lower Austria by “Niglo,” in Bohemia by
“Nikolo.”[17] At Ehingen on the Danube, it is the custom to keep tally
on a stick of the number of prayers the children have said. The child
that can show many tallies is favored by Santiklos. Before going to bed
children place bowls under the bed and say the prayer:
“St. Nikolaus, leg mir ein,
Was dein guter Will mag sein,
Aepfel, Birnen, Nuss und Kern
Essen die kleinen Kinder gern.
(St. Nicholas put in for me
What thy good will may be,
Apple, pear, and good sweetmeat,
Little children love to eat.)”
In the morning the bowls are found filled with the good things desired.
In various places in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, the saint,
represented by some older member of the family, appears, or used to
appear, in person, in bishop’s guise with staff and miter, and makes
inquiry concerning the behavior of the children, and hears the
children say their prayers. Before his coming the children have placed
shoes in the garden behind a bush, and when after his departure they
go out, they find the shoes filled with apples, nuts, and the like, if
their conduct has been good. But in the case of ill-behaved children,
the shoes are likely to be occupied by a whip.
In Italy a similar custom was formerly observed among people of higher
social station. In the courts of princes, on St. Nicholas’ day, it was
a custom to hide presents “in the shoes and slippers of persons whom it
was desired to honor, in such manner as to surprise them when they came
to dress. The custom was called Zopata from a Spanish word signifying a
shoe.”[18]
The function of St. Nicholas, it will have been observed, is a double
one, to bring pleasing rewards to good children, but also to bring fear
to children whose conduct has been bad. A Swiss dialect dictionary
published in 1806, defines “Samiklaus” as a “gift such as parents make
to their children through a disguised person named Samiklaus (corrupted
from St. Nicholas) in order to give them pleasure and encourage them to
duty and obedience or to frighten them through the strangely frightful
make-up of the bogey man who accompanies the Samiklaus.”[19] As a
means of exciting fear in the ill-behaved children, the friendly
bishop was often accompanied on his rounds by a children’s bugaboo,
a frightful figure with horns, black face, fiery eyes, and long red
tongue, variously called Klaubauf, Krampus, Rumpanz, and the like.[20]
Further evidence of the earlier wider prevalence of St. Nicholas
customs is afforded by the objections[21] of seventeenth-century
Protestant preachers, quoted in a later chapter, who opposed the
attribution to St. Nicholas of gifts which, they asserted, came from
the Christ Child alone. In objections such as these, is to be found
one of the causes of the decay of distinctively St. Nicholas customs.
Or perhaps we may better say, here is an explanation why customs that
persisted, lost their association with the name of St. Nicholas. There
is apparent Protestant objection to saint worship. There is also in
evidence the rivalry of the celebration in honor of the birth of Christ
which had received the name Christmas. The Christmas celebration was in
its origin a church affair. Up to the fourteenth century the church had
tried in vain to convert it into a popular festival. It employed all
kinds of methods to attract the traditional customs and beliefs of the
beginning of winter to the church festival. But only after the beliefs
and practices earlier attached to Martinmas, to St. Andrew’s day, and
to St. Nicholas’ day were brought into association with the birth of
Christ, did the Christmas festival, after the end of the fourteenth
century, become a genuinely popular occasion.
From this time on the customs distinctive of St. Nicholas’ day became
more and more absorbed into the Christmas festival.[22] At times St.
Nicholas retains his association with the old customs, but the time
is shifted from St. Nicholas’ day to Christmas time. In Catholic
Nuremberg, for instance, at the end of the seventeenth century, the St.
Nicholas gift-giving and the Christmas gift-giving customs were united,
and the St. Nicholas customs made dependent on the Christmas customs.
Children believed that St. Nicholas was the attendant of the Christ
Child and was made to carry the wares basket at the Christmas market,
and that St. Nicholas received sweetmeats as extras from the dealers.
As Christmas time approached, these were put under the pillows of the
children, who believed them to be the gifts of St. Nicholas.[23]
In all north Germany, too, on Christmas eve, there goes about a bearded
man covered with a great hide or with straw, who questions children
and rewards their good conduct. His name varies with the locality.
In many places he is called “Knecht Ruprecht,” a name probably going
back to a pre-Christian time before St. Nicholas became associated
with the children’s festival. In other places the man is called “De
Hele Christ,” Holy Christ, who later becomes the central figure of all
Christmas activities. In many of his names, however, such as “Rû Clås,”
“Joseph Clås,” “Clåwes,”[24] “Clås Bůr,” and “Bullerclås,” one will
recognize the juvenile derivative from the name Nicholas. This figure
often rides on a white horse. Not infrequently his relation to the
Christmas festival proper needs to be made clear by the presence of the
Holy Christ as a companion, represented by a maiden in white garb who
hears the children say their prayers.
Saint Nicholas in the double rôle of children’s benefactor and
children’s bugaboo found his way to America. Among the Pennsylvania
Germans, or “Pennsylvania Dutch,” as they are more familiarly called,
at least in the country districts, he continues to play his old part.
“You’d better look out or Pelznickel will catch you,” is the threat
held out over naughty children about Christmas time. The nickel in
Pelznickel serves to show the relationship of this personage to
St. Nicholas. Pelznickel is a Santa Claus with some variations. “On
Christmas eve someone in the neighborhood impersonates Pelznickel by
dressing up as an old man with a long white beard. Arming himself with
a switch and carrying a bag of toys over his shoulder, he goes from
house to house, where the children are expecting him.
“He asks the parents how the little ones have behaved themselves during
the year. To each of those who have been good, he gives a present from
his bag. But woe betide the naughty ones! These are not only supposed
to get no presents, but Pelznickel catches them by the collar and
playfully taps them with his switch.”[25]
Eventually, in many places, St. Nicholas became quite excluded from the
customs with which he was long associated. In Schleswig-Holstein, for
instance, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the old customs
were preserved but entirely separated from their earlier associations
with St. Nicholas and St. Nicholas’ eve, and now connected with the
story of the Christ Child and His festival, Christmas. The custom was
for each child to borrow a plate or bowl from the kitchen and place
this in an appointed room or in a window. On Christmas eve, when the
tinkle of the bell summoned the children from the dark anteroom
into the room with the festal decorations, then each child found what
the Christ Child (“Kindjes”) had brought him. On the plates lay cakes,
fruits, and playthings. Perhaps a rod was laid beside the other gifts,
but it counted as the most severe punishment when the plate remained
empty.
[Illustration: Christkindchen (Kris Kringle) and Hans Trapp in Alsace.
Reproduced from Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr._]
Here and there also in the country, as late as 1865, there survived the
similar custom, for the children, before going to bed, to place the
plate before the window, for in the night the Christ Child took out
a pane of glass and laid his gifts on the plate so that on Christmas
morning it was evident that the “Kindjes” had been present. Here we see
St. Nicholas quite deprived of his old prerogatives and his place taken
by the “Christ Kindjes,” or as he was called in some places “Christ
kindel,” from whose name, by a process of popular etymology, presumably
was derived the name Kris Kringle.
In various parts of the United States where Dutch and German customs
prevail, Kris Kringle appears in the combined rôle of the Christ Child
and Santa Claus, and the vigil of his festival is called “Christ Kinkle
eve.” In certain parts of Germany children sing, on Christmas eve:
“Christkindchen komm;
Mach mich fromm;
Dass ich zu dir im Himmel komm.”[26]
In the principality of Waldeck[27] down as late as 1830 there survived
a popular Christmas mummers’ play custom originating in the sixteenth
century and bringing in not only Christ and St. Nicholas but other
personages grotesque in appearance, some of them survivals from folk
celebrations antedating St. Nicholas customs. In the play appear
Christ, Mary, an Angel, Peter, and Niklawes, all clad in white, and
Hansruhbart, Brose, who bears the sack, and the shepherd Pamphilius
with the noble steed, Zink. Hansruhbart and Brose are clad in pea
straw and wear frightful masks. Pamphilius has suspended from a strap
about his neck a box full of dirt with which he threatens to smear
the children. Each person in turn is summoned to speak. As the chief
offence in the case of children is reckoned the preference of small
beer to coffee. Peter distributes the gifts, which the children receive
only after they have been forgiven. He has a basket with apples and
nuts, which he throws on a table for the children. As the children
reach out for his gifts, he strikes them on the fingers with his rod.
Mumming pieces like this were popular all over Germany, the personages
varying with the locality. Sometimes the Holy Christ went about alone,
and before him the children presented themselves. But the most striking
of all the personages in these plays was the one at Waldeck called
Hansruhbart, elsewhere Ruprecht and Knecht Ruprecht, at his earliest
recorded appearance called Acesto, probably a traditional figure that
originated in customs that antedate Christianity.
In all this discussion of various customs associated with the name
of St. Nicholas there will have been seen little to connect with the
life story of a saintly person. The deeds of the children’s friend,
St. Nicholas, to be sure exhibit beneficence, but the beneficence of
a capricious, fairy-like benefactor rather than of a holy saint. In
fact it is evident that the customs in question, in their origin,
had little, if anything to do with St. Nicholas, and as they exist
to-day show only in certain external features any relation with the
life story of the kindly Eastern saint. This impression of the earlier
independence of the popular customs in question from the story of St.
Nicholas, is confirmed by the fact that many of them are associated
with other names. St. Martin, as well as St. Nicholas, figures as a
giver of gifts to children, especially in the Netherlands. At Antwerp
and certain other cities, according to a report from a generation ago,
on St. Martin’s day, as in the St. Nicholas’ day celebration already
described, a man with bishop’s vestments and crosier appeared in the
nurseries and made inquiries about the behavior of the children.
According to the nature of this report he threw on the floor from his
basket, either rods, or apples, nuts, and cakes. In Ypres children are
reported to hang stockings filled with hay in the open chimneypiece on
the eve of Martinmas. The next morning the stockings are found filled
with gifts from St. Martin who in the night has ridden over the chimney
and has been grateful for the attention paid to his gray (or white)
steed.[28] There is also an old custom in Flemish Belgium in which on
the eve of Martinmas the children are placed in the corner of a room
with their backs to the door and told not to look. The parents then
throw in at the door apples, nuts, peppercakes, and other sweetmeats of
various kinds, pretending that St. Martin has done it. If one of the
children turns around, St. Martin goes away without leaving anything.
The bugaboo feature of St. Nicholas’ day also was not lacking in the
Martinmas celebration. In several places in southern Germany, on St.
Martin’s day, “Pelzmärte,” with blackened face and cowbells, went about
giving beatings or throwing apples into rooms, whichever the children’s
behavior called for.
Some of the Martinmas customs had less resemblance to St. Nicholas
customs. The convivial customs of Martinmas have given St. Martin a
reputation for drunkenness entirely undeserved by that zealous defender
of Christianity, St. Martin of Tours. But the ones singled out for
mention evidently belong jointly to St. Martin and St. Nicholas,
although in their origin probably as little connected with the one as
with the other.
The celebration of St. Andrew’s day, also, has features similar to
that of St. Nicholas’ day. On St. Andrew’s eve (November thirtieth),
in the neighborhood of Reichenberg, children are said to hang up their
stockings at the windows and in the evening find them filled with
apples and nuts.[29]
The explanation of the origin of these customs is to be found in
practices long antedating the time of St. Martin or St. Nicholas or
even of St. Andrew. They seem to be practices rooted in pre-Christian
agricultural rites which have been superseded, or better expressed,
have survived with new meanings read into them. With the introduction
of Christianity, following the usual course of things, the older
modes of celebration were changed not so much in form as in name.
To St. Martin were devoted customs which coincided in time with the
celebration in honor of St. Martin, customs originally associated
with the first drinking of the new wine or with the autumn slaughter,
a connection not entirely lost in our own times, as indicated by the
“Martlemas beef” in Great Britain, the “St. Martin’s geese” and “St.
Martin’s swine” in Germany. With the shifting of the agricultural
practices to a later date, the customs came to be associated with the
celebration of saints’ days later in the calendar. With St. Nicholas,
on December sixth, became associated customs and practices earlier
associated with St. Martin, on November eleventh, or with St. Andrew on
November thirtieth, but in their true nature as little appropriate to
one as to the other.
There have been attempts to show points of connection between the
Christian worship of St. Nicholas and the earlier worship of the
Teutonic divinities. It has been attempted to connect the children’s
bugaboo variously called Hansruhbart, Ruprecht, and Knecht Ruprecht,
with Odin, largely through a connection between the name Ruprecht and
one of the variety of names given Odin.[30] There has been pointed out
also the parallelism between the “beste tabbaerd” of St. Nicholas sung
about by children, and the magic robe which enabled Odin to pass from
place to place; between the gray horse of St. Nicholas on which he rode
over the roofs of houses, and Odin’s horse, Sleipnir, on which he took
an autumn ride through the world; between the sheaf of grain in pagan
days left in the field for Odin’s horse and the wisp of hay left by
children in their shoes for their friend St. Nicholas. But too much
stress must not be laid on these parallelisms. The customs associated
with St. Nicholas in their origin doubtless antedate Christianity but
also antedate the worship of Odin. Possibly the pre-Christian practices
were influenced by their temporary association with the Teutonic gods
as they afterwards were by the association with the Christian saints.
But in both cases this influence was only superficial.
A rapid resumé may clear up some of the obscure places in the preceding
mass of details. In the practices associated in our time with the name
of Santa Claus we have survivals of pagan sacred custom once regarded
as important in the furtherance of human welfare. Perhaps influenced
superficially by conceptions of the Germanic gods, eventually they
came to be connected with the honor of Christian saints. They afford a
remarkable illustration of the longevity of folk customs. With meaning
lost or changed, the older forms persist. Influenced, as remains to be
shown, superficially, by the life story of the saint with whose worship
they became associated, also to some extent with the Roman festivities
of the same season, above all converted to the use of providing
pleasure, as well as just reward, for children, they have survived
to our day. But owing in part to the effort of the Church in earlier
times to convert the church ceremony in honor of the birth of Christ
into a truly popular festival, in part to the later opposition to saint
worship on the part of Protestantism, the customs once associated with
the worship of St. Nicholas are now associated with the birth of Christ.
Santa Claus, the name derived from St. Nicholas through the familiar
use of children in Teutonic countries, crossed to America. The exact
route followed by him is somewhat open to question. On the way he
traded his gray horse or ass for a reindeer and made changes in his
appearance. It is usually said, however, that he was brought to
America by the Dutch. In America he has made himself very much at home,
and according to the explanation most generally accepted, from America
he recrossed the Atlantic to England, whence he has journeyed to the
most distant parts of the British Empire, to India and to Australia,
where he is as familiarly known as in America. In England, however,
while the custom of giving gifts to children has been made a part of
the Christmas celebration, the gratitude of the children in some places
goes to Santa Claus, but in other places goes to another creation of
the popular fancy, a personage called Father Christmas. In parts of
the German-speaking countries also, as has been shown, the honors of
Christmas day are concentrated in the person of the Christ Child, and
the benefactor of children is the Christ Child himself, the “Kindjes”
or “Christ kindel,” more familiarly known in America as Kris Kringle.
In France the place of the Christ Child as the purveyor of gifts had
been in part filled by “le petit Noël,” in a manner like that in which
in England Father Christmas in part shares the rôle of Santa Claus.