Feast of St. Nicholas

      Today is the feast of Saint Nicholas and, if you are a purist, you would have set your boots outside your door last night for Saint Nicholas to fill up. Of course, if you were bad, Saint Nicholas' helper Black Peter would fill your boots with coal instead. Back in the days when homes were heated with coal, that does not seem like such a punishment. Peter was black from all the coal he was carrying around rather than being of African or Moorish heritage like he is sometimes depicted.
     I have a book called The Xmas Files by Patrick Harding about the origins of many of our current Christmas customs. The jacket of the book proclaims that Dr. Harding achieved his doctorate by growing grass on coal tips so he is not a medievalist or historian but he must know how to write a scholarly work. This book is not that. There is no bibliography or citation in it which is disappointing because, on page 80, he states that Santa Claus is based in part on Odin in his guise as the Old Man of Winter and that Black Peter was Odin's Dark Helper, who travelled about with him. I would love to know where he got that from because, in my studies of Norse myth and Old Norse, this aspect of Odin never came up. Odin was the leader of the Wild Hunt that went abroad in the winter and he did wear a red cloak trimmed with fur but this 'dark helper' is a mystery to me. Could he be Loki, Odin's usual travelling companion?
     I have added three new links to my blog and they include a link to the Golden Legend, which is where much of the story about Saint Nicholas, who was the bishop of Myra in Anatolia (Turkey), comes from. It includes a link to Eusebius of Caesarea's history of the church, since Nicholas could have been at the Nicean Council. Indeed, as the council took place in 325 a.d. and Nicholas lived 343 a.d., it seems almost impossible that he did not attend since Nicea is also in Turkey but, of the supposedly 1800 bishops who were invited by the Emperor Constantine, only about 300 attended. Eusebius was at the council and was the man who baptized Constantine.
    I have also included a link to the history written by Socrates Scholasticus about the same event. I mention this because there is a tradition that Nicholas lost his shit at the council and gave poor Arius a smack in the face. I do not know where this tradition came from, from what I can see, the usual named source, St. Methodius, the patriarch of Constantinople, only stated that Saint Nicholas kept the city free from heresy. Socrates wrote that two celebrated bishops were at the council, Paphnutius and Spyridon, as well as Hosius most celebrated of the Spaniards. There is no mention of Nicholas or the slap.
     St. Nicholas has evolved into Santa Claus, as most people will know, and is given the name of Kris Kringle in some movies, which is a corruption of Krist Kindle or Christ child. I am not a religious person by any means but, since the merchants have gained control of the political agendas, the original significance of the festival has been completely corrupted to sell you more stuff that you really do not need. I deplore the commercialism of the season. The day to exchange gifts was today, on the feast of Saint Nick, who was the giver of gifts, not Christmas even if you add the lame excuse of the Three Wise Men bringing gifts because they gave their gifts on January 6, the day of the Epiphany (if you go by the current dates set for the birth of Jesus of Nazareth). Back to your chocolate alphabets; rant over for now.