Who Was Santa?

The Physics of Christmas: From the Aerodynamics of Reindeer to the Thermodynamics of Turkey
by Roger Highfield

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Legend suggests that St. Nicholas was born around A.D. 245 in the town of Patara, an important Byzantine port in Turkey, only a couple of hours' sail from Gemiler. When Nicholas was a young man, his father died, leaving a great fortune. Nicholas began anonymously giving away the money to the needy, especially to children. Eventually he became Bishop of Myra (the modern-day coastal town of Demre), at the southernmost tip of the Bey Daglari Mountains. (The name "Myra" is derived from that of the resin myrrh.) There he supposedly performed several miracles, including saving sailors from drowning and resurrecting three boys who had been killed by an evil butcher. It is the best-known of his miracles, however, that helps to wrap St. Nicholas into the legend of Santa Claus.

This miracle concerned a noble and his three daughters, who had fallen on hard times. The daughters had little chance of marriage, as their father could not pay their dowries, so they faced a life of prostitution. One night St. Nicholas, hearing of the girls' plight, threw a sack of gold through a window of the nobleman's shabby castle. The sack contained enough gold to provide for one daughter's marriage. The next night he tossed another sack of gold through the window for the second daughter. But on the third night the window was closed. Ever resourceful, St. Nicholas dropped the third sack of gold down the chimney. Townsfolk heard the story and began hanging stockings by the fireplace at night to collect any gold that might come their way, presumably-hence the tradition of the Christmas stocking and Santa's affinity for fireplaces.

St. Nicholas probably died sometime in the mid-fourth century (One oft-quoted date is December 6, 343.) The earliest Byzantine portraits show him with a long white beard, and when the reformed church spread throughout Europe, he became linked with Christmas because his feast day is 6 December. His fame was widespread by the sixth century- a possible explanation for the huge settlement on Gemiler.

But just after 650, this place of veneration was disbanded The Islamic governor of Syria launched a fleet to challenge Byzantine sea power in the Mediterranean. He quickly destroyed the settlements on Cyprus, followed by those on Rhodes and Cos. Gemiler was abandoned. The site lay forgotten and forlorn-the lost sacred city of St. Nicolas. Today St. Nicholas remains one of the most popular Christian saints and is known as the patron of children, sailors, teachers, students, and merchants.

There are many and varied explanations of how St. Nicholas evolved into the character we know. All that can be said with certainty is that Santa's roots lie in folk customs and beliefs from a sackful of sources. These include the British Father Christmas, the French Père Noël, the Dutch Sinterklaas, the Danish Jules-Missen, and even the Romanian Mos Craicun.

The Protestant church also influenced the evolution of this icon. When Martin Luther objected to the practice of gifts being given to children in the name of a Catholic saint, Nicholas was joined during the Reformation by a child, the Christkindlein. This would mutate back into the Father Christmas figure Kriss Kringle in English-speaking society.

Then the Christkindlein was joined by a dwarfish, darkfaced companion, often a frightening figure, known variously as Krampus, Pelzebock, Pelznickel (Nicholas in furs), Hans Muff, Bartel, or Gumphinkel. There were also female equivalents-Berchtel, Buzebergt, and Budelfrau. Most commonly the companion was called Knecht Ruprecht and carried a bundle of switches to mete out punishment to naughty children.

The Dutch are often credited with transforming the saint into the character we know today. Their custom of giving presents to children on the Day of St. Nicholas was brought to America by early Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam (renamed New York when the British took over the colony). There Sinterklaas, the colloquial Dutch for St. Nicholas, evolved into Santa Claus.

Sinterklaas was traditionally depicted with a broadbrimmed hat and a pipe, and his long churchly robe was replaced with short breeches. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the various traditions started to mingle, so that in I809, for instance, the American writer Washington Irving wrote of a jolly, chubby fellow riding in a wagon over treetops.

There is another, quite different way to trace the evolution of the modern Santa. His development could be viewed in terms of how brains have been parasitized through the ages by entities that evolved to thrive in just such a niche. These are memes (loosely speaking, units of cultural transmission), a term coined by the biologist Richard Dawkins to show that ideas replicate rather like genes do. Examples include tunes, catchphrases, innovative concepts, clothes, fashions, and, of course, Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and the rest.

Genes are carried by organisms in which they produce effects (skin color, blood type, and so on) that make each of us individual. Memes are carried by meme vehicles-poems, books, sayings, and so on-bearing an idea that will distract us, burden our memories, and coerce children to be well behaved in the frantic run up to Christmas Day. Otherwise, as the memes warn, Santa will not deliver any presents. As one sociologist puts it, "Parents use the belief in Santa Claus to control children, to induce children to defer demands for gratification to Christmas, and to make it appear that Santa, not the parents, causes the deprivation of children."

© 1998 by Roger Highfield

About the Author

Roger Highfield is the science editor of The Daily Telegraph in London. He carried out research at Oxford University and the Institute Lane Langevin, Grenoble, where he became the first to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble. He has coauthored three other books: Frontiers of Complexity, The Private Lives of Albert Einstein and The Arrow of Time a bestseller that has been translated into more than a dozen languages.