Who shall for the present delight here;
Be a king by the lot,
And who shall not
Be Twelfth-day Queen for the night here.
CHAPTER XIII
ST. NICHOLAS IN ENGLAND
St. Nicholas is practically forgotten to-day in Protestant England. But in the merrie England of olden times, before the Catholic religion had given way to Protestantism, he was one of the most popular saints in the calendar.
This is shown not only by the number of churches dedicated in his honor, but also by the number of boys who received his name in baptism. Nicholases were once as common among the Englishmen of the past as Maries were among English women. A curious fact may be brought up in evidence. In English catechisms, whose forms date from a very early time, the question is put to the pupil:
“What is your name?”
And the answer is printed thus: “N. or M.” Of course the pupil is expected to put his or her name in place of these initials. Now it is probable that N stands for Nicholas and M for Mary, and the choice of these initials was made not only because Nicholas was the patron of boys and Mary of girls, but because these were the commonest names in Old England.
The feast of St. Nicholas used to be celebrated by a ceremony known as the election of a Boy-bishop. This custom existed to some extent on the continent of Europe, but it nowhere flourished so vigorously as in England. It has been traced as far back as the thirteenth century.