This is the Golden Legend account of the end of the earthly life of the kindly bishop-saint. His body was placed in a tomb of marble, and in the year 1087 was discovered by Italian merchants and borne by them to the city of Bari in Italy. There his tomb is a famous center for pilgrimages. On his festival day, many thousands bearing staves bound with olive and pine honor his memory.[112] It is said that when his tomb at Myra was opened, the body was found swimming in oil, and that to this day there continues to issue from his body a holy oil “which is much available to the health and sicknesses of many men.” St. Nicholas, the guardian of so many things, also keeps guard over his own remains. Wace relates the story of a man carrying off a supposed tooth of the holy saint. In the night St. Nicholas appeared and admonished the thief, and in the morning the tooth was gone. St. Nicholas was mortal. But his deeds are immortal. His beneficent acts have flowered in legendary story and have found fruition in universal popular customs animated by the same spirit of kindness that pervaded the whole life of the saint. Probably the life history of no other person, save that of the Founder of Christianity himself, has been so intimately woven about human custom and human life as that of St. Nicholas. In certain parts of Siberia he is worshiped as a god. Even in our own country, although we are supposed to have outgrown idolatry, representations of Santa Claus about Christmas time, in shop windows and on street corners, are objects of worship little short of idolatry. To Santa Claus also at Christmas time are addressed the most sincere, even if not the most unselfish, supplications. We may well conclude our present consideration of St. Nicholas and his works with an invocation to him, using the words composed by the recluse Godric, back in the twelfth century, which form one of the very earliest of English lyrics: Sainte Nicholaes, godes druth, Tymbre us faire scone hus-- At thi burth, at thi bare-- Sainte Nicholaes, bring us wel thare. NOTES CHAPTER I [1] Manchester _Guardian_. [2] A. Tille, _Die Geschichte der Deutschen Weihnacht_, Leipzig, 1893, p. 30. [3] O. von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Traditions et Légendes de la Belgique_, p. 302. [4] Do., p. 323. [5] Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr der germanischen Völker_, Leipzig, 1863, pp. 360 ff. [6] Do., pp. 362, 363. [7] P.M. Hough, _Dutch Life in Town and Country_, London and New York, 1901, pp. 116 ff. The present account of St. Nicholas customs in Holland is based on notes from the book by Hough, but is not quoted exactly in order of details nor in wording. [8] Do., p. 121. [9] I. von Zingerle, _Zeitschrift für Volkskunde_, ii., 329 ff. [10] Hough, _op. cit._, p. 117. [11] Do., p. 125. [12] Do., p. 125. [13] I. von Zingerle, _op. cit._, p. 343. [14] Hough, _op. cit._, p. 125. [15] Do., p. 126. [16] Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_, p. 362.