“Oh, Nicholas, servant of God, why seek to hide thyself?”
And he kissed the holy man’s feet and hands. But Saint Nicholas made him promise that he would tell no one what had occurred.
The second legend is much more wonderful. It tells how Saint Nicholas was once travelling through his diocese at a time when the people had been driven to the verge of starvation. One night he put up at an inn kept by a very cruel and very wicked man, though nobody in the neighborhood yet suspected his guilt.
This monster, finding that the famine had made beef and mutton extremely scarce and greatly raised their price, had conceived the idea of filling his pantry with the fat juicy corpses of children whom he kidnapped, killed and served up to his guests in all varieties of nicely cooked dishes and under all sorts of fancy names.
Nobody could guess how he alone of all the innkeepers in that neighborhood could maintain a table so well supplied with meats, boiled and roasted, and stews and hashes and nice tasty soups.
But no sooner had a dish of this human flesh been served up to the saint than he discovered the horrible truth.
Leaping to his feet he poured out his anger in bitter but righteous words. Vainly the landlord fawned and cringed and protested that he was innocent. Saint Nicholas simply walked over to the tub where the bodies of the children had been salted down. All he had to do was to make the sign of the cross over the tub, and lo! three little boys, who had been missing for days, arose alive and well, and, coming out of the tub, knelt at the feet of the saint.
St. Nicholas resuscitating the schoolboys.
Old Neapolitan print.
All the other guests of the inn were struck dumb at the miracle. The children were restored to their mother, who was a widow. As to the landlord, he was taken out and stoned to death, as he richly deserved to be.