Nicholas of Myra

Bishop of Myra in Lycia, Nicholas lived in the fourth century and was imprisoned under Diocletian's persecution before Constantine restored peace to the Church; tradition seats him at the Council of Nicaea in 325. Of his life only stories survive, but they are tenacious. The oldest tells how, learning that a ruined father was about to sell his three daughters into prostitution for want of a dowry, he threw a purse of gold through the window three nights running — whence the three golden balls of his iconography and the custom of gifts left in secret. Another legend, born much later in Lorraine, shows him raising three children whom a butcher had salted away. Patron of sailors, children, merchants and Russia, he was also patron of travellers and prisoners. In 1087 merchants of Bari carried off his relics from the Turks to bring them to Italy, where they rest still. His feast, on 6 December, produced by way of the Netherlands — Sinterklaas — the figure of Father Christmas.