[Sca-cooks] OT: Saints and Demons and Elves, oh my! (was RE: Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 8, Issue 62)

[Celia des Archier]

Ah!  Now, you know... it begins to make sense now why Santa's helpers are
elves, then!
-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Marcus Loidolt
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 8:04 PM
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 8, Issue 62

  Benedicte, 
  For the past 20+ years I have 'helped the bishop of Myra by letting him
use my corporal being' to quote a certain Northshield princess...
  I have dressed in Oriental(Byzantine) episcopal vestment and deposited
coins in shoes in a few select houses...on several occasions The Bishop
appeared during the day and 'grilled' the inhabitants about their various
respective religious traditions and rewarded them with either sweets or with
a switch from his faithful, yet unwilling, demonic servant "Schwartz Pieter"
!!
   
  I always wondered about Black Peter, and how a Saint came to have a demon
for a servant, til I read in a collection of St. Nicholaus legends, dating
from the mid 14th cen, so at least known in period if not HIS period... That
this particular demon had been assigned to annoy the saint by foiling his
charitable aims by disclosing his anonimity....Bishop Nicholaus apprehended
the demon and instead of exorcising him back to Hades, used a trick Our Lord
taught him and instead of sending him into a herd of swine, simply made him
bear his pack and assist him...can't quite imagine a penalty more
humiliating for a demon than being made to do good works for a saint!!