Nicholas- the Fantastic Origin of Santa Claus

by Cody W Urban

  “I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” Nicholas called out to them. “There are people far hungrier who have suffered in order that an avaricious Governor may feast on more than he needs. That is about to change.”

  And just as Nicholas and Lysander moved to dash off with the wagon, the sailors called out to him. “Hoy! Ye be the Scarlet Rider, eh?”

  “Aye,” Nicholas replied, ready with the reigns to dash at a moment’s notice in case they were stalling him.

  “May we give you more?” the sailor asked. This comment stunned both Nicholas and Lysander and under his surreptitious hood, Nicholas made a thoroughly flabbergasted expression. At sight of his pausing and slacked jaw, the sailor stepped cautiously toward the wagon and explained, “We know of the great generosity you bring to those in dire need and we would have it that we never were under the employ of such a tyrant as Vasilis. We beseech ye, bind our hands that we appear to have been overtaken by brigands so no blame may befall us and take all the goods aboard our ship for the charity ye work.”

  Nicholas grinned, overjoyed with this proposition, and within the hour the crew, even the poor souls cast into the cold water, were willingly tied up to the mast of the ship and Nicholas made off with a great deal of food. He told the sailors that he would send word to the local authorities right away lest the crew be tied up in the cold all night. With that, Nicholas had not only dealt another blow unto his nemesis, but he also stocked himself for his gift-giving. Again, he had to reassure himself that he was at war with a tyrant, and taking his goods was no different from an army laying siege to an enemy stronghold.

  2

  On, on they send, on without end,

  Their joyful tone to every home.

  While the bells traveled the land spreading messages of hope and orchestrating movements and actions of those joining the revolution, one particular bell came to Nicholas that told him that an old woman believed a particular butcher was part of the kidnappings. She said that she watched a mother send her three children off to buy some bread, since she was ill at home. As they approached a baker in Myra, a butcher said to them that meat would strengthen the bones, muscles, and sinews more than bread, and he would offer them a great deal if they followed him to his shop. The old woman thought little of it at the time until it became known soon after that the three children never returned.

  Of course when she informed authorities, nobody was willing to do anything but run her in circles from one bureaucratic office to the next. So she put a note in a bronze bell, hoping it would find its way to Bishop Nicholas—which it did. And it was that night when the Scarlet Rider was hot on the mission.

  Within the hovel that was the meager butcher’s shop, the grim, greasy, and hairy beast of a man opened the top of a barrel and looked down at a scared starving boy. “It shant be long now, ye weak runt. They shall be here soon and I will have my reward.”

  The butcher laughed just when the door behind him smashed open, casting pieces of wood everywhere. In the doorway stood Nicholas, his red hood shadowing his face, but a glint in his eye stared at the butcher menacingly. “I would not call it a reward.”

  “Who the devil are you?” grunted the butcher while grabbing a meat cleaver. He stood easily a foot taller than Nicholas and a hundred pounds heavier. Nicholas unsheathed his sword, not afraid in the least.

  The little boy stared out the top of the barrel at the shadows of the two men battling before the candlelight. Crashes, grunts, and other sounds were all he could hear until finally there was a heavy thud upon the floor. The boy cringed, not sure what to expect, but dreadfully worried it would be the malevolent butcher glaring down upon him. The little boy heard heavy steps make their way towards the barrel, his body shaking and skin quivering in fear with each enormous step. Even if it was the man in red who won the fight, he still felt in danger. Finally the steps stopped in front of the barrel, and a voice that sounded like the first gleams of sunshine coming through a treacherous storm said, “You are safe now, son.” All fear and apprehension dissipated at the sight of the Scarlet Rider’s warm, loving smile.

  Nicholas cracked open another barrel and found an even younger boy. And then a third. He had thrown a linen cloth over the incapacitated butcher to keep the boys from seeing him. He wasn’t dead, but his face was mangled a bit.

  He led the two youngest by hand to the door. Stepping outside toward Sleipnir, Nicholas saw two Krampus lurking in the darkness glaring at him. He figured they had come to collect the boys and he was dead set on protecting them. He didn’t wish to fight in front of children so young, but if he could slay a few of these demons it would serve the world for the better.

  Nicholas waved for the boys to step behind Sleipnir and stay together. Then he stepped around, unsheathed his sword, and held it up. The red ribbon blew in the wind and the sword gleamed in the moonlight as Nicholas stood his ground to the monsters. “Come to me if you wish to die this night!” he shouted with power in his voice. “Come, you devils!”

  But the Krampus slinked away into the shadows of the forest, possibly in fear of the warrior who defied them, possibly because they saw their dreaded mistletoe about Nicholas’s neck. Either way, he had rescued the boys and brought them home to their mother. Later when he returned to interrogate the butcher, he was nowhere to be found and never to be seen or heard from again in all Lycia.

  3

  Ding dong, ding dong, that is their song,

  With joyful ring, all caroling.

  “We, as mankind does, tend to look at ourselves as we might this tapestry,” Nicholas said before a gathering out in the woods beside a campfire in a large circle surrounded by torches. Other than small visits by members of his church, to petition for prayers or to confess sins, and other than the continuous shelter for the homeless and wounded veterans, secret meetings like this were the best he could orchestrate for a church service. On a tree stump he stood a few feet higher than the others, and he held a large tapestry of multiple vibrant colors. He currently only displayed the backside of it, concealing the front. “From behind, we see knots and loose threads, the same as we see in ourselves maybe—only our knots are problems, sorrows, and scars. We forget to look at it from the other side.”

  With that sentence he turned the tapestry around and displayed a gorgeous pattern of a great spectrum of colors. “I know that the powers-that-be have left us with little choice other than to meet in secret under the veil of night. Let that not hinder our growth and our work. You all were brought here through our secret method of passing bells to one another. Let them ring when one is in need and let the bells jingle when others come to their aid. The Scarlet Rider alone cannot undo the cruelty wrought upon the people. Nor can one candle illuminate all of the night. Let our lights shine. Let our bells ring. Let them ring a song, a message to the world that we are a united people of love and we stand even when it is impossible to, for we carry each other. Let the bells ring a song that reminds us that our every dream is there in our hand—if we work together!”

  So the bells continued to ring through the night. The Scarlet Rider even made a collar around Sleipnir adorned in several of these small bells so that where he rode, ears would hear and know that hope rung through the night. The bells rang a single song of harmony among brothers and sisters. Marriages were solidified and healed. Relationships restored. Nicholas made his message clear to his flock that he wished for no more lives torn asunder, that each and every person would feel the warm embrace of a friend, and that peace would triumph over strife and tyranny.

  And that message began to alter Lysander more and more until one day he cared not about his inhibitions and fears and decided he would go to Deborah. He did it one afternoon, while she was sewing in a tent on the outskirts of Myra, where many people camped, having come to Myra to see Nicholas, or because as poor nomads it was a communal ground. As she pulled the needle and thread through a tunic she was hired to sew, a little bell landed through the front flap of her tent and made a soft jingle as it
landed. Knowing how the system worked, she quickly lifted it up expecting to find a small note inside—instead she found a string tied to it.

  As she stood, the bell whisked from her grasp and dashed outside. Having come to trust the use of these bells she decided to follow regardless of how she perceived someone was trying to make a fool of her. When she stepped outside, the bell slid along the dry grass and into some brush. With a sigh, not wanting to go on with the charade, yet compelled by intrigue, she continued following it through the bushes and watched the bell come to a stop beside a bouquet of dazzling red roses.

  Her cheeks blushed and she went over, lifted up the posy, and smelled the flowers when Lysander slowly stepped around the tree. “Don’t you adore these bells?” he said. “They can bring people to the Bishop, or to his right hand man.”

  “Well, if it isn’t Lysander. Why if this is not a change in the wind,” she said, suddenly looking disinterested in the bouquet in her hands.

  “You know not the truth of that,” he said thinking about how much had changed since he last departed.

  “Last I saw you—two years ago was it? You were off to battle, to claim your honor, to follow some Caesar’s son and seek vengeance upon the stolen life of your friend. You say you work with the Bishop now? How fares those goals?”

  “Those goals took me down a path I never dreamed of in my life. A path that has changed me profoundly,” Lysander said.

  “You left me just when I was sure you were going to propose to me. Maybe I have changed as well. Have you thought of that?”

  “Deborah, you are unlike any woman I have ever known, yet I see you are unchanged,” Lysander said with a smile.

  She turned and walked away with Lysander following her back into the camp and said, “How do you know I have not changed?”

  “Well, for instance, you are here. You came to Myra to see the new Bishop—typical Deborah if you ask me.”

  Having come to the entrance of her tent she turned and faced him and said, “What would you know about my spirituality? Nicholas is more than some ordinary Bishop.”

  “He is the friend who I went to avenge!”

  “I bid you a good day, Lysander, and take my leave of you. Shall you persist to fabricate such tales, maybe you ought to become a bard and share it at taverns to drunken fools who may care about such falsities.” Then she returned into her tent in a huff. Lysander was left outside and sighed, ready to cut his losses—but he was no quitter.

  “Deborah, Nicholas was my friend who was betrayed by Flavius Constantine, son of Caesar Constantius,” Lysander said as he rushed into the tent. “After I found him we returned here and he was ordained Bishop. Now I work along side of him in his mission to overthrow the Governor. You must have seen me at the gatherings. How else do I know about the bells?”

  Deborah paused. The people had begun to invest such symbolic pride in the bells that his mention of them instantly brought him into the esoteric circle and thus brought an element of credibility to his words. “If I were to believe what you say, what does that change? What do you ask of me?”

  Lysander took her hand and looked her in the eyes. “Your forgiveness. I am not that Roman soldier anymore. I am yours, if you will have me.” Saying that, he looked up and saw that she had hung a piece of mistletoe up in her tent.

  “Lysander. I am called to forgive, but I do not know if…”

  “Look, mistletoe,” Lysander said and then he gazed back into her eyes. “That means we are safe here. We are in a place where we can be free. Where two lovers may embrace without fear.” Something about his humble tone, humility never being one of his traits back when she knew him before, entranced her. As she gazed into his eyes to see whether he was telling the truth, she couldn’t help but feel bound by his words, and she could not look away. Lysander felt the same and, bending to the instincts in his heart, slowly moved closer to her, being intoxicated by her beauty more each moment. And she, overwhelmed with an attraction she did not quite understand, leaned closer to him. Before either of them knew it, their lips were pressed together. Under that green ward of the evil spirits, Lysander and Deborah were simply two people sharing a moment in time that none could offend.

  “Are you really no longer a Roman soldier?” she whispered in his ear.

  “Aye,” he whispered back.

  “Then maybe you ought come with me,” she said, holding his hand and guiding him from her tent. “I have somebody to introduce you to. He showed up recently and an elder was just about to prepare a bell message to the Bishop to arrange a meeting. If you are close to the Bishop, maybe you can bring him to Nicholas yourself.”

  Lysander followed her lead, thoroughly in suspense. They came around a corner and immediately Lysander saw a man sitting beside a pot cooking a stew over a fire and beside him on a log was a red, Roman cape and a Roman helm. Lysander grabbed the hilt of his sword but Deborah stayed his hand.

  “No, Lysander. He is with us.”

  4

  One seems to hear, words of good cheer,

  From everywhere, filling the air.

  “You have come to meet me?” Nicholas said to the Roman soldier whom Lysander and Deborah had escorted into his back room.

  “Aye, the name is Biticus,” he replied, giving him a humble bow that surprised Nicholas. Such propriety he had not received from a soldier before, nor ever expected to receive other than from the veterans he had cared for. Nicholas began to inch his way to the wall where his red sleeve accidentally hung from under the lid of a wicker basket to tuck it away covertly as he listened to the soldier.

  “I am come for the reason that my brother is one of the former soldiers who lost his arm in combat and has been a humble beggar since. His name is Justianus, should you remember him.”

  “Yes, Justianus, a fine fellow,” Nicholas said as he tucked the red sleeve under the lid.

  “There be no need for that, Nicholas. He knows,” Lysander said with a shy look hoping not to upset his friend.

  “He knows?” Nicholas said keeping his words ambiguous. The two of them spoke to each other through their eyes.

  “He ought to know, for I trust this man and his information is vital,” Lysander continued.

  “How can you trust a Roman soldier? He may be a spy!” Nicholas protested.

  “I beg you, sir, to hear me. I am no spy. I am indebted to your care for my brother until I could arrive to this land and care for himself as I should. As I have been stationed here, I have seen too many foul things. I have been sworn to secrecy, as all the local soldiers have been by the commanding officers who have been paid off by Vasilis. ’Tis a vow I gladly break.”

  “Tell me, what things have you seen?” Nicholas asked.

  “Dark monstrous beings. They could not possibly be men, nay they have bones protruding from the skin and horns on their heads. Not oft do we see them, but glimpses of them near Vasilis’ fortresses. When I inquired about them to my commanding officer I was rebuked and ordered to keep silent and my hallucinations to myself.”

  “I see,” Nicholas said. “That was as I feared. And now you have come to me for what reason?”

  “I beg your pardon, but are ye not the Scarlet Rider?”

  “Do the people say that I am?” Nicholas asked.

  “Nay,” he replied. “They believe he is an angel among men or some phantom of benevolent deeds.”

  “I am the Scarlet Rider,” Nicholas said.

  Deborah turned as white as a sheet. “Goodness,” she gasped. “Sir, you are more of a godsend than the people know.”

  “Pray, dear one, keep that secret locked in your heart,” Nicholas requested with caring concern.

  “Then you are the one I seek,” said Biticus.

  “What is it you seek, sir?” Nicholas asked.

  “I want to help the Scarlet Rider rescue the missing children, for I know where they are.”

  5

  Oh how they pound, raising the sound,

  O’er hill and dale, telling
their tale.

  Crack! went the whip lashed against the already torn backside of a young lad as he pushed a heavy cart of raw ore over to another group of youngsters who hacked away at minerals with picks. Others, shirtless and sweating, shoveled great heaps into kilns. The children worked in shifts. They were either shackled with nothing but stale bread to eat and a black substance to drink or they were worked to the brink of death to forge iron armor and weapons, wrought for some secret sinister plot. They had given up hope long ago and only a darkness now brewed within them; a tangible stench of filthy, sweaty younglings and shattered dreams filled the smoky lair. Their consciousnesses had retreated into the depths of their psyche leaving their bodies at the mercy of the fiendish slave-drivers to work as puppets without much thought or emotion.

  They were unaware that this very night the Scarlet Rider and his companions had plotted their liberation. Outside of the temple of Artemis, a substantial stone sanctuary held up by numerous pillars, had been left alone by the people of Lycia by decree of Vasilis. Now, it became clear to Nicholas why it had been restricted. This was the place where the children had been stolen to and worked as slaves by the Krampus for some scheme unknown, and there was a good amount of Krampus present. Either way, Nicholas, Lysander, Biticus, Pete, and a horde of his parishioners were outside of the temple with a ready plan of action. Tonight was the night of reckoning. In Nicholas’s mind, tonight was the night that he would accomplish his mission.

  Within the temple where it glowed a fiery red, the children labored in sweltering heat at the ruthless hands of the Krampus when all of the sudden the back door burst open and there stood the Scarlet Rider upon his mighty reindeer and at his side a white wolf baring its fangs. The Krampus, about ten in all, rallied and armed themselves to face the intruder despite his small piece of mistletoe.