Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/125

Rh laden with corn for Italy or Antioch. A glance at the map explains at once how easily Myra became an important shipping centre. In more recent times—for instance, during the Crusades—Myra had probably not yet entirely lost this position, for it is mentioned as a seaport on two occasions: in the twelfth century, when some merchants of Bari came to Myra and transferred to their own town the relics of the saint ; and in the twelfth century, when it is mentioned in the Itinerarium of the German Emperor, Frederick II.

People not only came to Myra for business: we often read in his legend of pilgrimages made to the relics of the saint. For example, Wace says:

I wish to show by these geographical notes that the cult of St. Nicolas, under these circumstances, could spread early and widely among sailors, not only in the East, but also in the West of Europe. The connection of St. Nicolas as a sea-patron having once sprung up, his miracles in that province are easily accounted for.

We may perhaps now succeed in explaining the likeness of names between St. Nicolas and Nikuz, Nicor, Nix. If in France St. Nicolas happens to have been a sea-monster, it is not unlikely that his name was also transferred to the sea- and water-deity of the Germans. We may then, perhaps, reverse Mr. Zingerle's hypothesis. St. Nicolas has not taken the place of the old god Nikuz, but the popular idea of St. Nicolas created the deity Nikuz in the same way that the Slavonian St. Vlassii (Blase) has perhaps helped