In all this discussion of various customs associated with the name of St. Nicholas there will have been seen little to connect with the life story of a saintly person. The deeds of the children’s friend, St. Nicholas, to be sure exhibit beneficence, but the beneficence of a capricious, fairy-like benefactor rather than of a holy saint. In fact it is evident that the customs in question, in their origin, had little, if anything to do with St. Nicholas, and as they exist to-day show only in certain external features any relation with the life story of the kindly Eastern saint. This impression of the earlier independence of the popular customs in question from the story of St. Nicholas, is confirmed by the fact that many of them are associated with other names. St. Martin, as well as St. Nicholas, figures as a giver of gifts to children, especially in the Netherlands. At Antwerp and certain other cities, according to a report from a generation ago, on St. Martin’s day, as in the St. Nicholas’ day celebration already described, a man with bishop’s vestments and crosier appeared in the nurseries and made inquiries about the behavior of the children. According to the nature of this report he threw on the floor from his basket, either rods, or apples, nuts, and cakes. In Ypres children are reported to hang stockings filled with hay in the open chimneypiece on the eve of Martinmas. The next morning the stockings are found filled with gifts from St. Martin who in the night has ridden over the chimney and has been grateful for the attention paid to his gray (or white) steed.[28] There is also an old custom in Flemish Belgium in which on the eve of Martinmas the children are placed in the corner of a room with their backs to the door and told not to look. The parents then throw in at the door apples, nuts, peppercakes, and other sweetmeats of various kinds, pretending that St. Martin has done it. If one of the children turns around, St. Martin goes away without leaving anything. The bugaboo feature of St. Nicholas’ day also was not lacking in the Martinmas celebration. In several places in southern Germany, on St. Martin’s day, “Pelzmärte,” with blackened face and cowbells, went about giving beatings or throwing apples into rooms, whichever the children’s behavior called for. Some of the Martinmas customs had less resemblance to St. Nicholas customs. The convivial customs of Martinmas have given St. Martin a reputation for drunkenness entirely undeserved by that zealous defender of Christianity, St. Martin of Tours. But the ones singled out for mention evidently belong jointly to St. Martin and St. Nicholas, although in their origin probably as little connected with the one as with the other.