Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/123

 Rh supplies a new connection between her and St. Nicolas; both are not only spring, but also sea deities.

There is of course no external likeness between the beautiful Greek goddess and the grey-bearded saint, but many of their attributes are alike. Artemis-Cybele is often represented as a sea-monster, with the tail of a fish ; traces of a legend of St. Nicolas in Sicily seem to indicate a similar conception of him, and Sicily must be considered as the starting point from which this legend—of a probably Greek origin—began to spread. In France, "une bête terrible qui prend les petits pêcheurs, qui vont se promener sans permission au bord de l'eau à la nuit tombante, s'appelle St. Nicolas: elle est armée de griffes et dechire la figure des enfants attardés sur les grèves."

This description reminds us of a passage in Beowulf:

In Germany millers throw different things into the water on the 6th of December, St. Nicolas' Day, as an offering to the water-deity. In Northern countries millers are par-