Introduction

This Life tells the story of the bishop of Myra, an ancient city in Lycia, south-east of Turkey, during the fourth century AD, although there is some uncertainty if a man named Nicholas did serve as bishop in Myra in this period. The earliest traditions about the saint can be traced to a Greek biography which is attributed to a monk named Methodius who died in 847: this was the source of all the other versions that tells the story of the saint according to Treharne (1997: 30). His cult spread to the west when this Greek text was translated into Latin by John the Deacon at the church of St Januarius in Napoli, about the end of the ninth century (Treharne 1997: 31). In a Cambridge manuscript, the Corpus Christi College MS, 303, this Life was adapted from Latin into Old English for the first timein about the eleventh century or the beginning of the twelfth century (Treharne 1997: 2). About the same time, Nicholas’s relics were transported from Myra to Bari in Italy, which increased the saint’s popularity in the west. For example, he is the patron saint of Russia, as well as the patron of sailors, children, unmarried maidens and merchants.

There are about four hundred churches dedicated to him in England and there are several churches and wells dedicated to him in Wales also. The church at Sain Nicolas, Glamorgan, is one of these, dedicated to Nicholas before 1435 (Owen and Morgan 2007: 350). He is occasionally depicted as a bishop in medieval images found in churches: dressed in a bishop’s costume, holding a crosier, a book, an anchor, and sometimes with children and ships. However, the most well-known image of Nicholasis of the saint holding three golden balls, such as the depiction in a modern church window at Sain Nicolas (for an image see Crampin 2014: 148). These three balls represent the three sacks of gold which are mentioned in this Life (see note on §3 [c]odeu yn llawn o aur). Medieval images of Nicholas from Wales include the saint wearing a bishop’s costume as in the stained glass window, once at St Cystennin church, Llangystennin (Cartwright 2008: 154), and it is possible that the wall painting at St Michael’s church, Colwinston, Glamorgan, represents a scene from his Life, that is, the miracle he performed while rescuing a child which had been left in a bath by his mother while she was at church (Lord 2003: 210–1). According to Lord, it is possible that the wall painting could originally have included other episodes from the Life of St Nicholas, although not everyone seems to agree. It has also been interpreted as the consecration of St Thomas à Beckett and the martyrdom of St Vitus (Orrin 2004: 48). We can be certain that the decorated font made of marble which is now kept at Winchester Cathedral depicts St Nicholas’s miracles, and also, a crosier head of carved ivory which depicts episodes from his Life and is now preserved in a collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Both of these have been dated to the twelfth century (see further Ševčenko 1983).

His feast-day is celebrated on 6 December and it became a tradition to distribute gifts as part of the celebrations which contributed, in due course, to Nicholas’s connection with the famous Santa Claus (or ‘Siôn Corn’ in Welsh). However, his role as patron saint of children was chiefly responsible for this. To generalize, the ancient stories about him saving children were combined with Dutch folklore traditions about Sinterklaas. When Protestants from the Netherlands settled in America during the seventeenth century, a new, American image of St Nicholas was created: he became a figure who possessed magical powers and who visited children over the Christmas period, giving gifts to good children and punishing naughty children (ODCC ³ 1155).

Lewys Glyn Cothi composed a praise poem to the saint (GLGC poem 6); however, there is not much correlation between the stories recountedin the poem and those found in the Welsh Life. The poem and the Life reveal that, from the cradle, Nicholas fasted by refusing milk from his mother’s breast when he was a baby; that he saved three poor maidens by leaving three sacks of gold to them at night in secret; and that he saved three sailors while they were in a middle of a storm at sea. However, there are two further stories in the poem by Lewys Glyn Cothiwhich have been omitted from the prose Life. Both are concerned with Nicholas saving children: a child which had been abandoned in a bath by his mother, and three children (which are three scholars in the poem) who have been captured by a butcher and then killed and placed in a salt tub. This suggests that there were many traditions about Nicholas in Wales during the Middle Ages (for further information on the traditions that surround Nicholas and his cult see ODS5 322–3 and Jones 1978: 224–36).

The sequence of the narrative in the Welsh Life suggests that the author drew on more than one source (these editions were used to compare: the English Festial by Erbe 1905; Latin edition of the Legenda aurea by Grässe 1846 and the Modern English edition and translation of the Legenda aurea by Ryan 2012). There are some similarities between the Welsh Life and the English sermon to the saint by John Mirk in his Festial, as well as the Latin version, the Legenda aurea. However, the Welsh version does not follow any of these faithfully, and it would appear that it has combined these two versions to create a Welsh adaptation. It is possible to divide the Life into thirteen paragraphs and the order of these paragraphs does reveal that the first part of the Life seems to follow the same order as the English sermon by John Mirk, De Festo St. Nicholai (Erbe 1905: 11–15). The order in Welsh is unique in the second part with stories which have not been included in the English version, but which are present in the Legenda aurea (LA 22–9). The order is as follows:

1. Nicholas’s birth. Unlike the Latin version in LA there is no introduction in the Welsh version, only a reference to his parents and his birth which emphasizes the sanctity of Nicholas by noting that he fasted from the cradle.

2. Nicholas is chosen as bishop of Myra. He is chosen because one of the other bishops hears a voice from heaven which leads him to Nicholas. This section follows the story of his birth in the English version, but not in the Latin.

3. Nicholas saves three maidens with three sacks of gold. The next section tells the story of how he left three sacks of gold in the home of a poor father in the middle of the night because the father was considering making his own daughter a prostitute. Nicholas does this three times because the father had three daughters. This story follows 2 in the English version but comes after 1 in the Latin version.

4. Nicholas saving sailors. This is a very short story that explains how Nicholas joined sailors at sea to save them after they prayed to him and to God during a storm. Again, this paragraph follows the order of the English by following 3, and there are some very similar sentences. The Latin also includes this section after 3, but it is much more comprehensive than the other versions.

5. Nicholas cures a nation’s famine. The saint persuades the sailors of a ship which carries grain to the emperor to give some of that grain to the people suffering from famine. He does this without restricting the amount of grain that reaches the emperor. This section comes after 4 in the English and Latin versions.

6. Nicholas saves two innocent knights. The knights are accused of treason but are saved by Nicholas after they prayed to him. There are some differences here in the Welsh version, but, in general, the Welsh version follows the English version more closely as the Latin version is quite different. Also, after this story in LA there are some miracles which have not been included in the Welsh version.

7. The statue of Nicholas protects belongings. The Welsh version is unique in placing this story after 6 and also it is the only version which states that the statue is protecting belongings in a ship rather than in a house. The English version tells the story of how Nicholas died, then how his relics were transported and finally it recounts the story about the statue.

8. Nicholas resurrects a child who was killed by the devil. This section has not been included in the English version. It is in the Latin version after 9 rather than 7.

9. Nicholas saves a child from drowning and the two golden phials. This section has not been included in the English version; it appears in the Latin version after 12.

10. Nicholas’s death. The story of how the saint died appears after 6 in the Latin and English versions.

11. Transporting Nicholas’s bones from Myra to Bari. Naturally, this story occurs after the section about how he died (10 in the Latin and English versions).

12. Nicholas helps a Jew who was tricked for his money. This story has not been included in the English version and in the Latin version it comes after 11 as the Welsh version.

13. Nicholas helps to return a boy who had been kidnapped to work as a slave. This story has not been included in the English version and it does not follow 12 in the Latin version either. However, this is the last miracle in the Latin version as it is in the Welsh one.

To summarize, up to paragraph 6 the Welsh narrative follows John Mirk’s sermon in his Festial. But from 7 onwards, the order becomes confused, and the accounts of how he died and how his relics were transported are inserted amongst the tales about the saint’s. There is no doubt that the author followed the Festial again in paragraph 7, however, paragraphs 8 and 9 are in a unique place in terms of order. Paragraphs 10, 11 and 12 follow the same order as the Latin version, but after that, in Latin there are some miracles which had been already included in the Welsh version. Therefore the author has omitted them rather than repeating them. But he realizes that he has not contained the last miracle that occurs in the Latin version, and therefore the Life concludes with the same story as the Latin version, that is how Nicholas returns a boy to his father’s chapel on St Nicholas’s day. This suggests, therefore, that the first half of the Welsh Life follows the Festial (until paragraph 6), and that the author used another source for the second part. It is not possible to be certain if this second source is the Legenda aurea as there were so many versions of ‘The Life of Nicholas’ during the medieval period; it may well have been a combination of sources.