Curiosities of Olden Times
"See! he is worshipping a Jew!" exclaimed the people; "this strange fellow is no good Christian. Bring hither the image."
Then the Madonna was brought before Nicolas, and he was told to bow before it. He refused. Then the people fell on him with their fists and sticks, and beat and kicked him into a ditch.
Papebroeck suggests that his reason for refusing to worship the image was humility, hoping to draw on himself the indignation of the multitude, and thereby acquire the merit of enduring insult and suffering wrongfully. Perhaps, as a Greek, Nicolas was unaccustomed to images other than pictures; perhaps he did not understand the language of his assailants; but probably he was actuated by no reason but a mad freak. In the Italian versions of the Life of St. Nicolas sold at Trani, this incident is omitted for obvious reasons.
Leaving Otranto, Nicolas came to Lecce, which he entered bearing a cross on his shoulders, and uttering his usual cry. He spent the alms given to him in the purchase of apples, which he carried in a pouch at his waist, and these he threw among the boys who followed him in crowds and shouted after him, "Kyrie eleison!"
The noise he made in the streets, the uproar caused by the children, were so intolerable that two brothers named John and Rumtipert seized Nicolas, and binding him hand and foot, locked him into a room of their house. But he suddenly disengaged
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