How did St. Nicholas inspire the Santa Claus legend?

The white-bearded Christian saint whose acts of generosity inspired America's secular Santa Claus figure is known worldwide — but Saint Nicholas' origin story is not.

The legends surrounding jolly old St. Nicholas — celebrated annually on Dec. 6 — go way beyond delivering candy and toys to children.

St. Nicholas was a fourth century Christian bishop from the Mediterranean port city of Myra).

“Much of the rest is legend. There's not really a lot of hard historical evidence about St. Nicholas,” said the Rev. Nicholas Ayo, author of “Saint Nicholas in America: Christmas Holy Day and Holiday.”

But whether the stories are true is not so much the point, said Ayo, an 89-yearold retired Notre Dame University professor named after St. Nicholas.

“There's no Santa Claus that lands on the roof, but there's a desire in people's heart for an unconditional love that doesn't depend on your behavior, but the fact that you're somebody's child.”

Devotion to St. Nicholas — also referred to as St. Nick — spread during the Middle Ages across Europe and he became a favorite subject for medieval artists and liturgical plays, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. He is the patron saint of Greece and Russia, Moscow and New York, as well as charities, children and pawnbrokers.

He also is the patron saint of sailors. In 1807, Italian sailors took the remains of St. Nicholas from Myra to the seaport of Bari, on the southeast coast of Italy. They built a church in his honor; relics believed to be his are kept in the Bari's 11th century basilica of San Nicola.

St. Nicholas Day is celebrated every year on Dec. 6, typically by filling the stockings and shoes children leave out overnight with sweets and toys. It also is a fitting date for the patron saint of sailors.

“The December feast day of Saint Nicholas coincides with the beginning of the winter storm season on the Mediterranean,” Ayo writes.

Legends surrounding St. Nicholas' generosity appear in texts ranging from medieval manuscripts to modern-day poems, including how he interceded on behalf of wrongly condemned prisoners and miraculously saved sailors from storms.