The origin of this festival, on St Nicholas day, is involved like most others in much obscurity, and
buried in heaps of legendary mysticism. The tale upon which it is said to have been founded is, that in the fourth century St. Nicholas was bishop of Myra, when two young gentlemen arrived at that city on their road to Athens, whither they were going to complete their education. By their father’s desire they were to seek the benediction of the bishop on their way, but as it was late at night when they reached Myra, they deferred doing so till the next morning; but in the meantime the host of the inn at which they were lodging, stimulated by avarice to possess himself of their property, killed the young gentlemen, cut them in pieces, salted them, and purposed to sell them for pickled pork.
St. Nicholas, the bishop, being favoured with a sight of these proceedings in a vision, (or, as we should now-a-days express it, by clairvoyance) went to the inn, reproached the cruel landlord for his crime, who, confessing it, entreated the saint to pray to heaven for his pardon. The bishop, moved by his entreaties, besought pardon for him, and restoration of life to the children. He had scarcely finished, when the pickled pieces re-united, and the animated youths threw themselves from the brine-tub at the bishop’s feet; he raised them up, exhorted them to ascribe the praise to God alone, and sent them forward on their journey, with much good counsel.
Such is the miracle handed down as the cause of
the adoption of Saint Nicholas as the patron saint of children. The Eton Montem is considered to be a corruption of the ceremony of electing a boy-bishop, probably changed at the time of the suppression of the religious festivals at the Reformation.
One other pageant, more especially connected with the history of a manufacturing city, is the procession of Bishop Blaize, or St. Blazius, the great patron saint of wool-combers; in which usually figured Jason, the hero of the “golden fleece,” and forty Argonauts on horseback, the emblems of the expedition, preceded by Hercules, Peace, Plenty, and Britannia. These were followed by the bishop, dressed in episcopal costume, crowned with a mitre of wool, drawn in an open chariot by six horses, and attended by vergers, bands of music, the city standard, a chaplain, and orators delivering, at intervals, grandiloquent speeches. Seven companies of wool-combers on foot, and five on horseback, brought up the rear; shepherds, shepherdesses, tastefully attired in fancy costumes, added to the brilliancy of the display. Bishop Blazius, the principal personage in the festivity, was Bishop of Sebesta, in Armenia, and the reputed inventor of the art of combing wool. The Romish church canonized the saint, and attributed to his miraculous interposition many wondrous miracles. Divers charms, also, for extracting thorns from the body, or a bone from the throat, were prescribed to be uttered in his name.
Among the festivals that lay claim to antiquity, of which some faint traces, at least, are left in the observances of the nineteenth century, are some few that belong as much to the history of the present as the past, and must not be omitted in sketches of the characteristic features of an old city. The Fair—the great annual gatherings of wooden houses and wooden horses, tin trumpets, and spice nuts, Diss bread, and gingerbread—menageries of wild natural history, and caravans of tame unnatural collections, giants, dwarfs, albinos, and lusus naturæ of every conceivable deformity—of things above the earth and under the earth, in the sea and out of the sea—of panoramas, dioramas—wax-works, with severable heads and moving countenances—of Egyptian tents, with glass factories in miniature concealed within their mystic folds, under the guidance of the glass-wigged alchemist, the presiding genius—performing canaries, doing the Mr. and Mrs. Caudle, and firing off pistols—pert hares playing on the tambourine, and targets and guns to be played with for prizes of nuts, and whirligigs and rocking-boats—the avenues of sailcloth, with their linings of confectionary, toys, basket-work, and ornamental stationery—the gong and the drum, and the torrents of Cheap-Jack eloquence, mingling with the music of the leopard-clad minstrels of the zoological departments;—dear is the holiday to the hearts, and memories, and anticipations, of
many an enlightened infant of this highly developed age;—as dear, and welcome, and thrilling, in its confusion of noise, and bewilderment of colour, as ever of old, to the children of larger growth, who, in the infancy of civilization, were wont to find in them their primers of learning, arts, and sciences.
When trade was principally carried on by means of fairs, and they lasted many days, the merchants who frequented them for business purposes, used every art and means to draw people together, and were therefore accompanied, we are told, by jugglers, minstrels, and buffoons; and as then few public amusements or spectacles were established, either in cities or towns, the fair-time was almost the only season of diversion. The clergy, finding that the entertainments of dancing, music, mimicry, &c. exhibited at them, drew people from their religious duties, in the days of their power proscribed them—but to no purpose; and failing in their efforts, with the ingenuity that characterized their age and profession, changed their tastes, and took the recreations into their own hands, turned actors and play-writers themselves, and substituted the Religious Mysteries for the profane punchinellos and juggleries that have since, in later times, resumed their sway, undisputed by any ecclesiastical rivals for popular applause in the dramatic line.
Among other sports that formed the attractions to