Lhe feast of Saint Nicholas, celebrated on the evening of December 5 and on the day of December 6, is dear to the hearts of many children in the North and East of France, in Belgium, in Luxembourg, in the Netherlands , and in parts of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It also generates a scenario which is renewed each year to their great pleasure. Saint Nicholas himself visits them. But the presence of Father Fouettard at his side is worrying.
However, the good bishop is not from these Germanic regions. How to explain that his worship could have won the hearts of all these little strangers? Nicolas was indeed born in the 3rd century far away, in Myra in Asia Minor, and distinguished himself by many gestures of generosity during his life. Some undoubtedly belong more to legend than to reality. The reputation of this “provider of abundance” was great and it has remained so! It was said that he had saved his city from famine as well as others, further away, whom he had reached by means of a boat laden with provisions, when night had already fallen. In addition, he became the patron saint of merchants and sailors whom he would have saved from the storm on several occasions. The maritime city of Myra being a known passage in the Mediterranean, the popularity of the saint only spread in the East and in the West. He is also the boss of the prisoners, for having released several, and with Saint Yves, he shares the patronage of the lawyers. Moreover, for having endowed three poor young girls whom the father condemned to debauchery, throwing gold purses out of the window for three nights in a row, he became the patron saint of the engaged couple. But his most famous - and undoubtedly legendary - "miracle" reproduced by many artists, is that of having resuscitated "three little children who were going to glean in the fields", that a wicked butcher had cut into pieces and “Put in the salting-tub like swine”. All this could only make the good bishop extremely popular and if he is one of the saints most represented in religious iconography, he is also in songs. The feast of St. Nicholas was celebrated on 6 December, presumed date of his death in 343. In 1087, Italian merchants transported the remains of the bishop to Bari in Puglia, in order to substitute them for the infidel Turks. At the end of the 11th century, a pious Lorrain deposited a phalanx of the saint in Port in Meurthe-et-Moselle, and this allowed his cult to spread in Europe. Illustrious pilgrims, including Joan of Arc and several kings of France, came to pray in the “great church” that was built there. Through the merchants of the North Sea or the Rhine, the devotion to the generous personage grew still further and probably came to cover other pre-Christian customs. The good bishop was thus venerated in those Germanic countries where the ancient religion obeyed Odin, also called Wotan. This god Odin, chief of the German gods, founding god, had the particularity of moving in the air on his horse with eight legs, Sleipnir, in the company of two crows. He was likened to the dreaded “Savage Hunter” who drove, during stormy nights and during the twelve days, a noisy team made of the Valkyries his messengers, of Perchta, former goddess of Fertility transformed into a demon, and of an army of dead. The image of the holy bishop dressed in red or purple, with his large white beard conferring upon him wisdom and dignity, was gradually superimposed on those of the god and the promising personifications of certain winter tours that were called “handsome masks”. . The figure of Santa Claus, who holds much of him, is already drawing. Nicolas was quite naturally decked out with an ugly acolyte with the blackened face, shouting, gesturing and threatening with his whips, a surviving image of the ugly characters of the same winter tours. These two kinds of masks with so opposite costumes symbolized the barren and frightful season, or on the contrary the expected return of the fine weather. In the Swiss tours of Appenzell, the Sylvesterkläuse (“Nicholas of New Year's Eve”) continue to symbolize these contrasts at the time of the New Year of the Gregorian (December 31) and Julian (January 12) calendars. We sometimes lend to the Father Whipper, also called Hans Trapp in Alsace, Knecht Ruprecht in Germany or Krampus in Austria, recent origin inspired by certain historical figures. For others, it would only be an 18th century educational invention, to scare schoolchildren. That it exists to cause fear, that is certain, but its creation is surely anterior. The croquemitaines, like the butcher of the song, have always been very present figures in the education of children, from an early age. The two characters so opposed to each other, such as Saint Nicholas and Father Fouettard, went together to the families, on the evening of the 12th of December, to question the children. The little ones answered with fear and the Bishop did not fail to distribute some sweets to them, while the dark companion threatened them with his rods. But the scenario has changed, because the visits of the saint and his valet are now collective: they take place at school for example. This relieves the children who are no longer attacked personally by the wicked Father Whipper! They do not forget, that evening, to put their shoes in the fireplace, with hay or carrots for the donkey (for the horse in the Netherlands), and they find there the following morning loaves of bread. spices, speculoos or marzipans, as well as small toys.
Moreover, like Saint Nicolas, the distributors of gifts are sometimes religious, like the German or Austrian Child Jesus, or like the Spanish Three Kings. These mythical characters are very close to children and they remain very affordable in their minds, as can Santa Claus.
In the 16th century, Saint Nicolas, considered too papist by the Reformation which condemned the worship of saints, was replaced in Protestant regions by the Child Jesus (Christkindel) symbolized by a young girl dressed in white. Very Catholic regions like Austria and Bavaria would in turn adopt the angelic image of this Christkindel. More and more often, the procession of Saint Nicolas is official and it is the whole city, informed by the press, which comes to meet it in a main square. The “fervor” of the young assistants remains the same! Father Fouettard is still there, but the children, even if they continue to fear him, no longer feel individually threatened. These parades take place on the Saturday or Sunday closest to December 6.