Tarot of the Saints - I - St. Nicholas - The Magician

Three Briny Boys in a Tub, or In a Pickle

I had never heard of this particular legend of St. Nicholas until I started collecting cards with Saints on them.

I scanned several Nicholas cards from decks and almost all of them depict the three boys in a tub of brine. Several references label them as "scholars" rather than boys, but the story remains the same: they were murdered and kept in brine by a nefarious innkeeper to provide meat for his customers. Nicholas found out and raised the briny boys from the dead and released them.

One thing about this card that also shows up frequently is the three gold balls signifying the gold balls or bags of gold that Nicholas secretly gave to a family as dowry for the three daughters who would have been sold into slavery or prostitution otherwise. Every book I have on Nicholas states that this is where the symbolism of the three gold balls over pawnbroker shops come from. However, my Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says this was also a symbol taken from the Medici coat of arms. Whether the canny Medici cadged it from the legend of St. Nicholas is unknown.

Robert Place says he found it hard to choose a saint for this card and finally based it on Nicholas because he had the most miracles associated with him. I like to think that his bishop's hat is reminiscent of the original magician's hat shown in very early tarot cards. Stretching it a bit, but I agree that the many miraculous deeds of the saint fit this card.

I have found it interesting to get away from the Jolly Old St. Nick aspect of Nicholas and see him as a religious figure who performed miracles and saved people from death, kidnapping, and slavery. Similar to Santa Claus, he really loved children and went out of his way to keep them safe.

He doesn't seem to have been too tricky in a negative way or out of spite, which is how I usually view the negative side of this card, and this is often reflected in Magician imagery in decks. The meanness of the trickster for the sake of having malicious fun doesn't fit with Nicholas. I do think he was able to trick people so that he could save hostages for instance, but other than that, I can't see the negative side in this person.

If I contemplate the reverse of his deeds, that would be a negative association, although not directly attributable to Nicholas.

Here in mainland Europe, especially Belgium and Holland St. Nicholas is still a venerated or should I say feasted saint because each year at his namely where he gives candy (mostly and traditionally chocolate coins robbed in gold coloured foil to represent the gold balls or bags of gold from the legend) and also toys. As with the legend he operates at night so no one would see what he does or gives.

To many children he is THE miracle man to exhaust all their wishes and dreams and who solves their problems (as does Santa but before Santa was introduced over here) a true magician

I like seeing in the card and hearing from members, the different traditions and associations for Nicholas. It really opens up the stereotype, which is helpful for some of the more popular saints, who do seem to have a formulated profile about them.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but I'd like to post some of the card comparisons between decks for these saints.

I am not a subscriber, so someone would have to post for me. Not all of them will be big, but the ones for Francis, Nicholas and Mary Magdalene all have 4 to 6 cards, so the file size is 45 to 65 kb. for each. They are low resolution and I have copyright symbols over part of the pictures to deter copyright infringement. I think they would be okay to post and be interesting to others.

In any case, I am doing them for myself as part of the study.

An anonymous benefactor just gave me a subscription, so I am truly delighted to upload these pictures of St. Nicholas--all very different.

I like him in The Saint Deck because he looks a bit like a nutcracker figurine. The two French playing card sets sometimes show artwork or manuscript miniatures, but more often they show statuary from various churches. In the one on the lower left, I swear he looks like a creche figure of one of the three kings.

The Golden Tarot of the Tsar shows the moment when Nicholas returned a boy named Basil to his family after rescuing the boy from Saracen kidnappers. I've never seen any mention of that legend except in Eastern orthodox descriptions of St. Nicholas.

Four of these cards show the three boys in the brine. Nicholas does look rather magnificent and Magus-like.

room said:

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I scanned several Nicholas cards from decks and almost all of them depict the three boys in a tub of brine.

Click to expand...

Associated also perhaps with the companion of St. Nicholas 'Krampus', who is sometimes portrayed with a tub or basket on his back into which he pitches children. In connection with this I have suggested that the 'popesse' may possibly be seen as St. Nicholas [as boy bishop of St. Nicholas day]:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=844198&postcount=61

In thread 'exploring the cary sheet':
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=62044

Kwaw

I didn't know about Krampus. Creepy Krampus.

My feeling is that similar to toning down Grimm's Fairy Tales, that the gruesomeness of the story of 3 pickled boys was toned down by inventing a secondary meaning to the 3 boys, perhaps changing it slightly to control children's behaviour with a bogeyman, and tie in with the naughty and nice aspect of St. Nick's visiting only good children at Chriatmas?

Perhaps. Stories mutating over time is one of the delightful aspects of human history. It provides much fun to pick up the clues.

Not sure about the Popess tie in. It doesn't seem to fit the pattern to me of companionate cards like Popesse/Pope and Empress/Emperor.

Why would they change it to a boy? And why would they choose Nicholas?

Bias against women might possibly have engendered (pun!) a mutation of the card to reflect a male in some instances. Either the patron or the artist might have changed it to get rid of that darn woman Pope on tarot cards. I mean really, imagine a woman being a Pope. We must eradicate that sort of nonsense. <g>

Or perhaps it was a reflection of the schism between popes. Again, a change to reflect the change in society or the political leanings of the patron? Not St. Nicholas, but the "other" Pope? A sly way of getting the artist to slip your support of one Pope or the other into the mix?

That makes sense to me anyway.

But then, maybe the patron liked the story of the boy bishop and wanted that in there? When you're paying an artist to do up something like a special deck of cards or an illuminated manuscript or book of hours, you can pretty much get what you want depicted.

Anyway, it's interesting to ponder these various stories. Thanks for the exploration.