supplies a new connection between her and St. Nicolas; both are not only spring, but also sea deities.[1]
There is of course no external likeness between the beautiful Greek goddess and the grey-bearded saint, but many of their attributes are alike. Artemis-Cybele is often represented as a sea-monster, with the tail of a fish[2]; traces of a legend of St. Nicolas in Sicily seem to indicate a similar conception of him,[3] and Sicily must be considered as the starting point from which this legend—of a probably Greek origin—began to spread. In France, "une bête terrible qui prend les petits pêcheurs, qui vont se promener sans permission au bord de l'eau à la nuit tombante, s'appelle St. Nicolas: elle est armée de griffes et dechire la figure des enfants attardés sur les grèves."[4]
This description reminds us of a passage in Beowulf:
swylce on naesshleoðum
Þâ on undern-mâel
sorh-fulne sîð
nicras licgean
oft bewitigað
on segl-rāde.[5]
In Germany millers throw different things into the water on the 6th of December, St. Nicolas' Day, as an offering to the water-deity.[6] In Northern countries millers are par-
- ↑ On sea and spring cults of St. Nicolas, see Mikola Ugodnik, etc., pp. 11-20, and 37-51; and Hampson, l. c., pp. 67-72: "According to Hyginus, the privilege of preserving mariners from storm at sea was conferred upon Anaitis by Neptune, who was also one of the Cabiric deities, and whose festivals, the Neptunalia, were celebrated on the 5th, as that of St. Nicolas was on the 6th, December." This coincidence of both feasts is less suggestive, because Neptune is not mentioned in the Life of the saint. Neither do we know anything about the cults of Neptune in Myra.
- ↑ Guhl, ibid., p. 91.
- ↑ "There is some ground to believe that an echo of the name- and sea-cult of St. Nicolas lives under the name of Nicolo-Pesce, hero of a Sicilian legend that has inspired Schiller with his Der Taucher," says Prof Vesselovsky, Jurnal Ministerstva Narodnago Prosvieshchenia, vol. 168, 1890, p. 2. See also Archivio per lo studio delle Tradizioni populari, viii, p. 3; and ix, p. 377, Lu Piscicola e il Cola Pesce.
- ↑ Revue des Traditions populaires, i, p. 7.
- ↑ Beowulf, 1428-1430.
- ↑ Zingerle, l. c., p. 416.
