The Mail on Sunday

Why everyone’s talking about... St Nicholas

- STEVE BENNETT

Today is the feast day of St Nicholas, with whom the story of Father Christmas starts. So who was he?

Legend has it that he rescued three sisters from prostituti­on. On three separate nights, he dropped a sack of gold coins through their window so their impoverish­ed father could pay dowries and marry them off. Hence his reputation for the night-time delivery of gifts.

Really?

The only recognised fact about him is that he was a 4th Century bishop of Myra, which is in modern-day Turkey, and was probably imprisoned when Roman emperor Diocletian persecuted Christians. All else i s conjecture originatin­g centuries after his death.

Such as…

A grim story, popular in the Middle Ages, was that he rescued and resurrecte­d three children who had been killed by a butcher during a famine and pickled in brine, ready to be sold as ham. Other yarns tell of him felling a tree possessed by a demon (it had previously turned an axe on a would- be woodchoppe­r, slaughteri­ng him), and calming a storm at sea, which is why he’s patron saint of sailors. S t Ni c k also represents archers, repentant thieves, prostitute­s, brewers, pawnbroker­s and singletons, as well as children.

What happened to him?

He died on December 6, 343 AD, but in 1087 Italian sailors took his bones to their home port of Bari, where they remain and are said to exude a watery myrrh with supernatur­al powers.

Each year on December 6, a small vial of the liquid (which may simply be seawater seeping through his tomb) is extracted and given to the sick.

And the Santa Claus story?

This comes from Dutch tradition. On his feast day in the Netherland­s, St Nicholas, or ‘ Sinterklaa­s’, leaves gifts – such as oranges, which recall the gold coins he reputedly threw – for children who have been good.

He’s accompanie­d by Zwarte Piet (‘Black Pete’), who punishes or even abducts the naughty.

As Black Pete is usually portrayed by white people in blackface and Afro wigs, there are moves – backed by the United Nations – to phase him out, but these are opposed by traditiona­lists.

Similar myths a bound across Europe, with the evil sidekick called Krampus. Medieval England had a different St Nicholas custom, with boys appointed bishops for the day, ruling over their elders.

That’s one tradition we can happily leave in the past!

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