THE BOOK OF SAINT NICHOLAS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DUTCH

OF

DOMINIE NICHOLAS ÆGIDIUS OUDENARDE.

NEW-YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-ST. 1836.

[Pg 2]

[Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by JAMES K. PAULDING, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.]

[Pg 3]

CONTENTS.

[Pg 4]

[Pg 5]

TO THE SOCIETIES OF SAINT NICHOLAS IN THE NEW NETHERLANDS, COMMONLY CALLED NEW-YORK.

MOST DEAR AND WORTHY ASSOCIATES,

In obedience to the command of the good saint who is equally an object of affectionate reverence to us all, as well as in due deference to the feelings of brotherhood which attach us irrevocably to those who honour his name, his virtues, and his country, I dedicate this work to you all without discrimination or exception. As descendants, in whole or in part, from that illustrious people who, after conquering nature by their industry and perseverance, achieved liberty by their determined valour, and learning and science by their intellectual vigour, I rejoice to see you instituting bonds of union, for the purpose of preserving the remembrance of such an honourable lineage, and the ties of a common origin. While we recollect with honest pride the[Pg 6] industry, the integrity, the enterprise, the love of liberty, and the heroism of old “faderland,” let us not forget that the truest way to honour worthy ancestors is to emulate their example.

That you may long live to cherish the memory of so excellent a saint, and such venerable forefathers is the earnest wish of

Your associate and friend, NICHOLAS ÆGIDIUS OUDENARDE.

Nieuw-Amsterdam, July, 1827.

[Pg 7]

THE AUTHOR'S ADVERTISEMENT,

WHICH IS EARNESTLY RECOMMENDED TO THE ATTENTIVE PERUSAL OF THE JUDICIOUS READER.

You will please to understand, gentle reader, that being a true descendant of the adventurous Hollanders who first discovered the renowned island of Manhattan—which is every day becoming more and more worth its weight in paper money—I have all my life been a sincere and fervent follower of the right reverend and jolly St. Nicholas, the only tutelary of this mighty state. I have never, on any proper occasion, omitted doing honour to his memory by keeping his birthday with all due observances, and paying him my respectful devoirs on Christmas and Newyear's eve.

From my youth upward I have been always careful to hang up my stocking in the chimney corner, on both these memorable anniversaries; and this I hope I may say without any unbecoming ebullition of vanity, that on no occasion did I ever fail to receive glorious remembrances of his favour and countenance, always saving two exceptions. Once[Pg 8] when the good saint signified his displeasure at my tearing up a Dutch almanac, and again on occasion of my going to a Presbyterian meeting house with a certain little Dutch damsel, by filling my stockings with snow balls, instead savoury oily cookies.

Saving these manifestations of his displeasure, I can safely boast of having been always a special favourite of the good St. Nicholas, who hath ever shown a singular kindness and suavity towards me in all seasons of my life, wherein he hath at divers times and seasons of sore perplexity, more than once vouchsafed to appear to me in dreams and visions, always giving me sage advice and goodly admonition. The which never failed of being of great service to me in my progress through life, seeing I was not only his namesake, but always reverently honoured his name to the best of my poor abilities.

From my youth upward I have, moreover, been accustomed to call upon him in time of need; and this I will say for him, that he always came promptly whenever he was within hearing. I will not detain the expectant reader with the relation of these special instances, touching the years of my juvenility, but straightway proceed to that which is material to my present purpose.

The reader will please to comprehend that after I had, with the labour and research of many years, completed the tales which I now, with an humble deference, offer to his acceptance, I was all at once struck dumb, with the unparalleled difficulty of finding[Pg 9] a name for my work, seeing that every title appertinent to such divertisements hath been applied over and over again, long and merry agone. Now, as before intimated to the judicious reader, whenever I am in sore perplexity of mind, as not unfrequently happens to such as (as it were) cudgel their brains for the benefit of their fellow-creatures—I say, when thus beleaguered, I always shut my eyes, lean back in my chair, which is furnished with a goodly stuffed back and arms, and grope for that which I require in the profound depths of abstraction.

It was thus I comported myself on this trying occasion, when, lo! and behold! I incontinently fell asleep, as it were, in the midst of my cogitations, and while I was fervently praying to the good-hearted St. Nicholas to inspire me with a proper and significant name for this my mental offspring. I cannot with certainty say how long I had remained in the bonds of abstraction, before I was favoured with the appearance of a vision, which, at first sight, I knew to be that of the excellent St. Nicholas, who scorns to follow the pestilent fashions of modern times, but ever appears in the ancient dress of the old patriarchs of Holland. And here I will describe the good saint, that peradventure all those to whom he may, in time to come, vouchsafe his presence, may know him at first sight, even as they know the father that begot them.

He is a right fat, jolly, roistering little fellow—[Pg 10] if I may make bold to call him so familiarly—and had I not known him of old for a veritable saint, I might, of a truth, have taken him, on this occasion, for little better than a sinner. He was dressed in a snuff-coloured coat of goodly conceited dimensions, having broad skirts, cuffs mighty to behold, and buttons about the size of a moderate Newyear cooky. His waistcoat and breeches, of which he had a proper number, were of the same cloth and colour; his hose of gray worsted; his shoes high-quartered, even up to the instep, ornamented with a pair of silver buckles, exceedingly bright; his hat was of a low crown and right broad brim, cocked up on one side; and in the buttonholes of his coat was ensconced a long delft pipe, almost as black as ebony. His visage was the picture of good-humoured benevolence; and by these marks I knew him as well as I know the nose on my own face.

The good saint, being always in a hurry on errands of good fellowship, and especially about the time of the holydays of Paas and Pinxster; and being withal a person of little ceremony, addressed me without delay, and with much frankness, which was all exceedingly proper, as we were such old friends. He spoke to me in Dutch, which is now a learned language, understood only by erudite scholars.

“What aileth thee, my Godson Nicholas?” quoth he.

I was about to say I was in sore perplexity concerning[Pg 11] the matter aforesaid, when he courteously interrupted me, saying,

“Be quiet, I know it, and therefore there is no special occasion for thee to tell me. Thou shalt call thy work ‘THE BOOK OF ST. NICHOLAS,’ in honour of thy patroon; and here are the materials of my biography, which I charge thee, on pain of empty pockets from this time forward, to dilate and adorn in such a manner, as that, foreseeing, as I do, thy work will go down to the latest posterity, it may do honour to my name, and rescue it from that obscurity in which it hath been enveloped through the crying ignorance of past generations, who have been seduced into a veneration for St. George, St. Dennis, St. David, and other doughty dragon-slaying saints, who were little better than roistering bullies. Moreover, I charge thee, as thou valuest my blessing and protection, to dedicate thy work unto the worthy and respectable societies of St. Nicholas in this my stronghold in the New World. Thou mightst, perhaps, as well have left out that prank of mine at the carousing of old Baltus, but verily it matters not. Let the truth be told.”

Saying this, he handed me a roll of ancient vellum, containing, as I afterwards found, the particulars which, in conformity with his solemn command, I have dilated into the only veritable biography of my patron saint which hath ever been given to the world. The one hitherto received as orthodox is, according to the declaration of the saint[Pg 12] himself, little better than a collection of legends, written under the express inspection of the old lady of Babylon.

I reverently received the precious deposite, and faithfully promised obedience to his commands; whereupon the good St. Nicholas, puffing in my face a whiff of tobacco smoke more fragrant than all the spices of the East, blessed me, and departed in haste, to be present at a wedding in Communipaw. Hereupon I awoke, and should have thought all that had passed but a dream, arising out of the distempered state of my mind, had I not held in my hand the identical roll of vellum, presented in the manner just related. On examination, it proved to contain the matter which is incorporated in the first story of this collection, under the title of “The Legend of St. Nicholas,” not only in due obedience to his command, but in order that henceforward no one may pretend ignorance concerning this illustrious and benevolent saint, seeing they have now a biography under his own hand.

Thus much have I deemed it proper to preface to the reader, as some excuse for the freedom of having honoured my poor fictions with the title of The Book of St. Nicholas, which might otherwise have been deemed a piece of unchristian presumption.

[Pg 13]

THE STORY BOOK OF SAINT NICHOLAS.

THE LEGEND OF ST. NICHOLAS.

Everybody has heard of St. Nicholas, that honest Dutch saint, whom I look upon as having been one of the most liberal, good-natured little fat fellows in the world. But, strange as it may seem, though everybody has heard, nobody seems to know anything about him. The place of his birth, the history of his life, and the manner in which he came to be the dispenser of Newyear cakes, and the patron of good boys, are matters that have hitherto not been investigated, as they ought to have been long and long ago. I am about to supply this deficiency, and pay a debt of honour which is due to this illustrious and obscure tutelary genius of the jolly Newyear.

It hath often been justly remarked that the birth, parentage, and education of the most illustrious personages of antiquity, are usually enveloped in the depths of obscurity. And this obscurity, so far[Pg 14] from being injurious to their dignity and fame, has proved highly beneficial; for as no one could tell who were their fathers and mothers on earth, they could the more easily claim kindred with the skies, and trace their descent from the immortals. Such was the case with Saturn, Hercules, Bacchus, and others among the heathens; and of St. George, St. Dennis, St. Andrew, St. Patrick, and the rest of the tutelaries, of whom—I speak it with great respect and reverence—it may justly be said, that nobody would ever have heard of their progenitors but for the renown of their descendants. It is, therefore, no reflection on the respectable St. Nicholas, that his history has hitherto remained a secret, and his origin unknown.

In prosecuting this biography, and thus striving to repay my obligations for divers, and I must say unmerited favours received from this good saint, after whom I was christened, I shall refrain from all invention or hyperbole, seeking the truth industriously, and telling it simply and without reserve or embellishment. I scorn to impose on my readers with cock and bull stories of his killing dragons, slaughtering giants, or defeating whole armies of pagans with his single arm. St. Nicholas was a peaceful, quiet, orderly saint, who, so far as I have been able to learn, never shed a drop of blood in his whole life, except, peradventure, it may be possible he sometimes cut his finger, of which I profess to know nothing, and, therefore, contrary to the custom of biographers, shall say nothing.

[Pg 15]

St. Nicholas was born—and that is all I can tell of the matter—on the first of January; but in what year or at what place, are facts which I have not been able to ascertain, although I have investigated them with the most scrupulous accuracy. His obscurity would enable me to give him a king and queen for his parents, whereby he might be able to hold up his head with the best of them all; but, as I before observed, I scorn to impose such doubtful, to say no worse, legends upon my readers.

Nothing is known of his early youth, except that it hath come down to us that his mother dreamed, the night before his birth, that the sun was changed into a vast Newyear cake and the stars into oily cooks—which she concluded was the reason they burned so bright. It hath been shrewdly intimated by certain would-be antiquaries, who doubtless wanted to appear wiser than they really were, that because our worthy saint was called Nicholas, that must of course have been the name of his father. But I set such conjectures at naught, seeing that if all the sons were called after their fathers, the distinction of senior and junior would no longer be sufficient, and they would be obliged to number them as they do in the famous island of Nantucket, where I hear there are thirty-six Isaac Coffins and sixteen Pelegs.

Now, of the first years of the life of good St. Nicholas, in like manner, we have been able to learn nothing until he was apprenticed to a baker in the famous city of Amsterdam, after which this[Pg 16] metropolis was once called, but which my readers doubtless know was christened over again when the English usurped possession, in the teeth of the great right of discovery derived from the illustrious navigator, Henricus Hudson, who was no more an Englishman than I am.

“Whether the youth Nicholas was thus apprenticed to a baker on account of his mother's dream, or from his great devotion to Newyear cakes, which may be inferred from the bias of his after life, it is impossible to tell at this distant period. It is certain, however, that he was so apprenticed, and that is sufficient to satisfy all reasonable readers. As for those pestilent, curious, prying people, who want to know the why and wherefore of everything we refer them to the lives of certain famous persons, which are so intermingled and confounded with the lives of their contemporaries, and the events, great and small, which happened in all parts of the world during their sojourn on the earth, that it is utterly impossible to say whose life it is we are reading. Many people of little experience take the title page for a guide, not knowing, peradventure, they might almost as safely rely upon history for a knowledge of the events of past ages.

Little Nicholas, our hero, was a merry, sweet-tempered caitiff, which was, doubtless, somewhat owing to his living almost altogether upon sweet things. He was marvellously devoted to cakes, and ate up numberless gingerbread alphabets before he knew a single letter.

[Pg 17]

Passing over the intermediate years, of which, indeed, I know no more than the man in the moon, I come to the period when, being twenty-four, and the term of his apprenticeship almost out, he fell desperately in love with the daughter of his worthy master, who was a burgomaster of forty years standing. In those unprecocious times, the boys did not grow to be men and the girls women, so soon as they do now. It would have been considered highly indecent for the former to think of falling in love before they were out of their time, or the latter to set up for young women before they knew how to be anything else. But as soon as the worthy Nicholas arrived at the age of twenty-four, being, as I said, within a year of the expiration of his time, he thought to himself that Katrinchee, or Catharine, as the English call it, was a clever, notable little soul, and eminently calculated to make him a good wife. This was the main point in the times of which I am speaking, when people actually married without first running mad either for love or money.

Katrinchee was the toast of all the young bakers of Amsterdam, and honest Nicholas had as many rivals as there were loaves of bread in that renowned city. But he was as gallant a little Dutchman as ever smoked his way through the world pipe foremost, and did not despair of getting the better of his rivals, especially as he was a great favourite with the burgomaster, as, indeed, his conduct merited. Instead of going the vulgar way to[Pg 18] work, and sighing and whining out romance in her ear, he cunningly, being doubtless inspired by Cupid himself, proceeded to insinuate his passion, and make it known by degrees, to the pretty little Katrinchee, who was as plump as a partridge, and had eyes of the colour of a clear sky.

First did he bake a cake in the shape of a heart pierced half through by a toasting fork, the which he presented her smoking hot, which she received with a blush and did eat, to the great encouragement of the worthy Nicholas. A month after, for he did not wish to alarm the delicacy of the pretty Katrinchee, he did bake another cake in the shape of two hearts, entwined prettily with a true lover's knot. This, too, she received with a blush, and did eat with marvellous content. After the expiration of a like period, he did contrive another cake in the shape of a letter, on which he had ingeniously engraven the following couplet:—

The meaning of which, if the reader doth not comprehend, I do hereby earnestly advise him to set about studying the Dutch language forthwith, that he may properly appreciate its hidden beauties.

Little Katrinchee read this poesy with a sigh, and rewarded the good Nicholas with a look which, as he afterward affirmed, would have heated an oven.

Thus did the sly youth gradually advance himself[Pg 19] in the good graces of the little damsel, until at length he ventured a downright declaration, in the shape of a cake made in the exact likeness of a little Dutch Cupid. The acceptance of this was conclusive, and was followed by permission to address the matter to the decision of the worthy burgomaster, whose name I regret hath not come down to the present time.

The good man consulted his pipe, and after six months' hard smoking, came to the conclusion that the thing was feasible. Nicholas was a well-behaved, industrious lad, and the burgomaster justly concluded that the possession of virtuous and industrious habits without houses and lands, was better than houses and lands without them. So he gave his consent like an honest and ever to be respected magistrate.

The news of the intended marriage spoiled all the bread baked in Amsterdam that day. The young bakers were so put out that they forgot to put yeast in their bread, and it was all heavy. But the hearts of the good Nicholas and his bride were as light as a feather notwithstanding, and when they were married it was truly said there was not a handsomer couple in all Amsterdam.