December 6th is the day of Saint Nicholas, and I felt the need to share with my readers a gruesome bedtime story involving chopped up, brined children and how St. Nick (then a bishop) put them back together.
The story of murder, attempted cannibalism, and resurrection comes from the Gentleman’s Magazine, April 1777.
Life of St. Nicholas
The fame of St. Nicholas’s virtues was so great that an Asiatic gentleman, on sending his two sons to Athens for education, ordered them to call on the bishop for his benediction.
However, the boys, getting to Myra late in the day, thought proper to defer their visit till the morrow, and took up their lodgings at an inn.
The landlord, to secure their baggage and effects to himself, murdered them in their sleep, and then cut them into pieces, salting them, and putting them into a pickling tub, with some pork which was there already, meaning to sell the whole as such.
The bishop, however, having had a vision of this horrific event, immediately resorted to the inn, and calling the host to him, reproached him for his horrid villainy.
The man, knowing that he was discovered, confessed his crime, and asked the bishop to intercede on his behalf to the Almighty for his pardon; who, being moved with compassion at his contrite behavior, confession, and thorough repentance, besought Almighty God not only to pardon the murderer, but also, for the glory of his name, to restore life to the poor innocents who had been so inhumanely put to death.
The Saint had hardly finished his prayer, when the mangled dead and detached pieces of the two youths were by divine power reunited, and, perceiving themselves alive, threw themselves at the feet of the holy man to kiss and embrace him.
But the bishop, not suffering their humiliation, raised them up, exhorting them to return thanks to God alone for this mark of his mercy, and gave them good advice for the future conduct of their lives.
Then, bestowing his blessing, he sent them with great joy to continue their studies at Athens.
The writer holds this to be a sufficient explanation of the naked children and tub, which are the well-known emblems of St. Nicholas.
