[This story is mentioned in Act III during the breakfast at Robert's house]
The Legend of Nicholas and the Elves – a Synopsis
- By Geoffrey C Whittier
As legend has it, Nicholas (born in Asia Minor in c. 370 CE) was orphaned at birth and grew up seeking Wisdom. He eventually became a disciple of Jesus the “Carpenter of Wisdom” [this is Egbert Whittier’s term[1]]. He ministered to orphaned children primarily, but also to the lonesome, abandoned, neglected and abused. His Threefold ethic was “Compassion—Generosity—Hospitality.” Every year at the Winter Solstice he gifted to those in need, and when he died, he crossed†over into ‘the Otherworld,’ where he continued his benevolent ministry.
During his years of ministry, as he found the need outweighing his ability to relieve it, Nicholas met a troop of “Faeries of Éire” (as Egbert called them; they are the ‘Elfs’ of our modern Christmas mythos)! These Faery joined him in his ministry and aided him in his annual enacting of Compassion—Generosity—Hospitality. The aid of the faery troop made it possible for him to extend his compassionate work well beyond his hometown of Myra.
This troop of Faeries had come into Asia Minor at the end of a long pilgrimage. They had left their home in Éire in quest of wisdom. When they met Nicholas, finding him an instance and living rune of the wisdom they were seeking, they pledged themselves to him in willing service. They delivered gifts and ran errands of mercy and compassion for him, thereby helping him expand his ministry until it nearly – though far from fully – “filled out the extent of his heart’s compassion. Nicholas and his Faery friends are said to have lived together in a secret cave, somewhere outside the town of Myra. This cave had once been used as the treasure-stash of a local bandit band that had made many donations to the boy-gift-giver’s ministry.
As the time of the Gift-Giver’s death approached, Nicholas and his Faery assistants made a pilgrimage north, hoping to take him back to Éire. During this journey they were encountered on the shores of a northern sea by a Celtic manifestation of Wisdom; the Mabon. This dying-and-rising wisdom-god, who was born at the Winter Solstice, granted them Eight Magnificent Reindeer and showed them how to get across the sídhe (i.e., a “doorway” between this world and the “otherworld”) to a place “at the top of the world.” Nicholas, having died on the ‘northern shore’ where they met the Mabon, went on to the Top of the World, where the Faeries met him again; having been carried there in their wagon by the Magnificent Reindeer. There they found a workshop and a circle of twelve ráths (i.e., faery houses) already prepared for them. They settled down at this esoteric place with Nicholas and continued in their compassionate and philanthropic work.
The new home of Nicholas and the Faeries in the Otherworld has come to be known as “the North Pole” in modern times, though to the Faery & Nicholas it has always been “Tara Lough;” named after the Faeries own home-tuath back in Éire.
At this new home in the Otherworld the Faery & Nicholas ‘listen’ for the wishes of the abandoned, orphaned, lonesome and unfortunate the whole world ‘round, all year long. They then plan acts of practical, life-redeeming and mystery-inspiring charity for each coming Yule. After an unknown time, the Thirteen Faery of Tara Lough returned to their home-Tuath in Ireland where they met and were handfasted with thirteen Faery women who willingly gave up their mortal lives to go live in life-partnership with their hand-fasted husbands. There were then 26 Faery in residence at Tara Lough. Over the years as Faeryfolk from Tara Lough in Ireland died and crossed†over, many of them chose to go up to Tara Lough at the top of the world, to help Nicholas in his compassionate ministries.
Thirty-nine times nine years after their arrival at Tara Lough, the original 26 Faery Elders were enchanted into a Mysterious Wood near Tara Lough at the Top of the World. There they experienced the Advent of Runa Luna;[2] a spirit-being who inspired the Faeries with prophesies of Hope for a better mortal world. She then petitioned them to allow Her to return to the Cromlech and dwell with them. The 26 Faery Elders accepted Her petition and danced their way home with the Lady of the Mysterious Wood in their company. She then became the Mistress of Tara Lough, being ‘partnered’ with Nicholas as her brother down through the Ages. She is, in our family’s telling of the stories, the mythic reality behind our stories of ‘Mrs. Claus.’
Over the centuries, Nicholas came to be known by different names in many countries: Sinter Klaas, the Weihnachtsmann, Father Christmas, Grandfather Frost, and eventually – in the United States – Santa Claus.[3] In all these guises, Nicholas has continued his benevolent ministry of anonymous gift giving, throughout the Middle Ages and down to the present day.
By the end of November, Nicholas and the faeries leave Tara Lough at the Top of the World and cross-back-into this world, where they begin inspiring Yuletide cheer in those who are willing to awaken to the magic and wonder of the Winter Solstice Season. Their aim is always to encourage mortals to take up the compassionate ministry to which Nicholas has ever been devoted. Many of the Faery stay here, visiting with mortals throughout the Season, only returning to Tara Lough at Epiphany (The Hinterlands; 6 January). Nicholas and his Faeryfriends cross†over once into our world on the eve of the 6th of December, at the Winter Solstice, on the 25th of December and then on 6 January, Epiphany—to deliver both mysterious and practical gifts to children and others in need in every land where his existence is accepted. They leave Tara Lough by a series of now long-established ‘roads’ between the worlds, returning again to Tara Lough by dawn the next morning.
From the day that Nicholas and the Faeries first crossed†over into our world to deliver gifts, the wagon of Nicholas [later his sleigh] had been driven by the 8 Magnificent Reindeer gifted to them by the Mabon, and that had drawn the gift-giver’s wagon across the sídhe and into the Otherworld on their trip North from Myra. As they are of otherworldly origin, these Reindeer have the uncanny ability to find ‘thin places’ between the worlds. Being creatures of the Otherworld, they can, of course, fly.[4]
Thus, Nicholas and the Faeries can pass back and forth from Tara Lough at the top of the world in their reindeer-drawn-sleigh, arrive in the vales of mortal time, and then go back again each year after their travels on Nicholas Eve, Winter Solstice Night, Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night (i.e., Epiphany). Since the mid-20th century, they have been joined by a 9th Reindeer,[5] whose name is famous.
[1] Egbert Whittier was the originator of the “Thirteen Nights and Dayes of Yule” in the early 19th century. He had a poetic and mystical relationship to a human vision of Jesus of Nazareth as “the Carpenter of Wisdom.” Like Thomas Jefferson and others of his age, he did not think of Jesus as divine.
[2] Runa Luna; the Mistress of Tara Lough – a character whose story was added to the legend of Nicholas and the Elves in 2012 by Hildegard Whittier. Hildegard had written a poem about Runa Luna the previous year, which she then expanded into the current tale. Hildegard is now the “Keeper of the Tale,” the “Office” (i.e., and the responsibility of primary storyteller) having passed to her after the death of Susan Jean Whittier.
[3] Egbert himself did not know the name Satan Claus, as it arose in the mid-19th century. Hs great-grandson Jacob Whittier (1825-1910) later adopted this name for Nicholas during the Yuletide festivities in the 1880’s. Since that time, we have used the names “Santa Claus” and “Nicholas” fairly interchangeably.
[4] In the decades after the publication of Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” (1822) our ancestors began using the names of the reindeer in that poem as the ‘real astral names’ of the 8 Mystical Reindeer; being incorporated into the text of the “Legend of Nicholas and the Elves” by Jonathan Whittier around 1893, just before the family moved into the new house on Deer Hill. These names do not appear in Egbert’s book.
[5] This refers to story of Rudolf, of course, written as a Christmas promotional by Robert May when he was an employee of the Montgomery C Ward Company in 1939.
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