He was born on a cold frosty morning, on the 6th of December, (upon which day his feast is still observed,) but in what anno Domini is not so clear; his baptismal register, together with that of his friend and colleague, St. Thomas at Hill, having been "lost in the great fire of London."
St. Nicholas was a great patron of Mariners, and, saving your presence—of Thieves also, which honourable fraternity have long rejoiced in the appellation of his "Clerks." Cervantes's story of Sancho's detecting a sum of money in a swindler's walking-stick, is merely the Spanish version of a "Lay of St. Nicholas," extant "in choice Italian" a century before honest Miguel was born.
[A LAY OF ST. NICHOLAS.]
"Statim sacerdoti apparuit diabolus in specie puellæ pulchritudinis miræ, et ecce Divus, fide catholicâ, et cruce, et aquâ benedicta armatus venit, et aspersit aquam in nomine Sanctæ et Individuæ Trinitatis, quam, quasi ardentem, diabolus, nequaquam sustinere valens, mugitibus fugit."
Roger Hoveden.
"Lord Abbot! Lord Abbot! I'd fain confess; I am a-weary, and worn with woe; Many a grief doth my heart oppress, And haunt me whithersoever I go!"
On bended knee spake the beautiful Maid; "Now lithe and listen, Lord Abbot, to me!"— "Now naye, Fair Daughter," the Lord Abbot said, "Now naye, in sooth it may hardly be;
"There is Mess Michael, and holy Mess John, Sage Penitauncers I ween be they! And hard by doth dwell, in St. Catherine's cell, Ambrose, the anchorite old and grey!"
"—Oh, I will have none of Ambrose or John, Though sage Penitauncers I trow they be; Shrive me may none save the Abbot alone, Now listen, Lord Abbot, I speak to thee.
"Nor think foul scorn, though mitre adorn Thy brow, to listen to shrift of mine! I am a Maiden royally born, And I come of old Plantagenet's line.
"Though hither I stray, in lowly array, I am a damsel of high degree; And the Compte of Eu, and the Lord of Ponthieu, They serve my father on bended knee!