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.
NOTES
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.
CHAPTER XI
[112] Miles, _op. cit._, p. 221.
Transcriber's notes:
The following is a list of changes made to the original.
The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
Belgian children, exiled in France for more that two years,
Belgian children, exiled in France for more than two years,
paintings there is a scene respresenting the infant Nicholas
paintings there is a scene representing the infant Nicholas