Chapter LIV: Section VI: Pan

A few words beginning with πᾶς (all) must here be mentioned, such as Pankratios (all ruling). A boy thus called is said to have suffered at Rome, in his 14th year, in 304, under Diocletian. Even in the time of Gregory of Tours, it was supposed that certain vengeance followed false oaths made at his shrine, and his relics were therefore very valuable. A present of some from Pope Vitalian to our King Oswy brought St. Pancras into fashion in England, and Pancrace and Pancragio have also named many churches in France and Italy. The lily called _pancratium_ claims by its name to excel all others.

Πανταλέων, Pantaleon (altogether a lion), was one of the numerous Christian physicians who suffered martyrdom. He died at Nicodemia, but his relics were brought to Constantinople, and thence to France, where he is the chief saint of the largest church at Lyons, and he is the patron of doctors next after St. Luke. His name was in use in France and Italy before. As a peasant name, he fell, with Arlechino and Colombina, into comedy. His dress was on the stage made to fit tight to his body, as if all in one piece, and he was always a feeble old man, whence Shakespeare speaks of the lean and slippered pantaloon. Thence again, when the entire leg was covered by the trousers instead of by stockings and breeches meeting at the knee, the name of pantaloon was applied to the new garment.

Νίκη (victory) was an auspicious word, which, being of feminine gender, as befitted a goddess, was a favourite close for women’s names; such as Stratonike (army victory), Φερενίκη, Pherenike (bringing victory). Berenike was the Macedonian pronunciation of this last, and was in constant use among princesses of the two Greek kingdoms of Syria and Egypt. From these ladies, those of the Herod family took the name, and thus it was borne by that Bernice who heard St. Paul’s defence. Oddly enough, the peasants of Normandy are fond of calling their daughters Berenice. Veronica is sometimes said likewise to be a corrupt form.

In men’s names Nike was the prefix, as in Nikon, Niklias, Nikodemos (conquering people), Nikolaos (Νίκολαος), a word of like meaning. This last, after belonging to one of the seven first deacons, and to the founder of a heresy doomed in the Apocalypse, came to the Bishop of Myra, from whom it acquired a curious legendary fame that made it universal. St. Nicholas is said to have supplied three destitute maidens with marriage portions by secretly leaving money at their window, and as his day occurred just before Christmas, he thus was made the purveyor of the gifts of the season to all children in Flanders and Holland, who put out their shoe or stocking in the confidence that Santa Klaus or Knecht Clobes, as they call him, will put in a prize for good conduct before the morning. The Dutch element in New England has introduced Santa Klaus to many a young American who knows nothing of St. Nicholas or of any saint’s day. Another legend described the saint as having brought three murdered children to life again, and this rendered him the patron of boys, especially school-boys.

A saint of both the East and West, with a history so endearing, and legends still more homely and domestic, Nicholas was certain of many followers throughout Christendom, and his name came into use in Europe among the first of the sainted ones. To us it came with the Norman Conquest, though not in great abundance, for only one Nicolas figures in Domesday Book, but his namesakes multiplied. The only English pope was Nicolas Breakspear; and Nicole or Nicola de Camville was the brave lady who defeated the French invaders at Lincoln, and secured his troublesome crown to Henry III. She deserves to have had more ladies called after her in her own country, but the feminines are chiefly confined to France, where, in the fifteenth century, its contraction was beatified in the person of a shoemaker’s daughter, Collette Boilet, who reformed the nuns of St. Clara, and died in the odour of sanctity. The southern nations almost always contract their names by the omission of the first syllables, as the northern ones do by leaving out the latter ones; and thus, while the English have Nick, the Italians speak of Cola, a contraction that became historical when the strange fortunes of “Cola di Rienzi, the tribune of the people,” raised him to his giddy height of honour, and then dashed him down so suddenly and violently, that “You unfortunate Rienzi” has ever since been a proverbial expression of pity in Italy.

The French language generally has both varieties of contractions, perhaps according as it was influenced by the Provençal or the Frank pronunciation, and thus its Nicolas becomes Nicole or Colas, sometimes Colin. Thence it has been suggested that Colin Maillard, or blind-man’s-buff, may be Colin seeking Maillard, the diminutive of Marie, which would drolly correspond to the conjecture that the “N or M” of our catechism and marriage service, instead of being merely the consonants of _nomen_, stand for Nicholas and Mary as the most probable names. The French Colin is probably Nicolas, and is the parent of all the Arcadian Colins who piped to their shepherdesses either in the rural theatricals of the ancient regime, in Chelsea china, or in pastoral poetry. The Scottish Colin may, perhaps, have been slightly influenced by French taste, but he bears no relation to Nicolas, being, in fact, formed from the Irish missionary, Saint Columba. The true Scottish descendant of the patron of scholars is to be found in that quaint portrait, Baillie Nicol Jarvie. The _h_ with which Nicolas is usually spelt in English was probably introduced in the seventeenth century, which seemed to think good spelling consisted in the insertion of superfluous letters.

Niel, a pure Keltic word, which was adopted by the Northmen, and became naturalized in Scandinavia and Normandy, has also been translated by Nicolas, but quite incorrectly. Nils is the only _real_ Nicolaus except Klaus used in the North, though Niel, and even Nigel, are sometimes confounded with it. Denmark has had a King Klaus; otherwise this popular name has only been on the throne in the instance of that great Tzar whom we had respected till the last year of his life, when his aggression forced us into war.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ Scotch. │ French. │ Danish. │
│Nicholas │Nicol │Nicolas │Nikolaus │
│Nick │ │Nicole │Niklaas │
│Nicol │Colas │Colin │Klaus │
│ │ │ │Nils │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Dutch. │ German. │ Bavarian. │ │
│Niklaas │Nikolaus │Niklau │Swiss. │
│Klasse │Niklas │Nickel │Chlaus │
│ │Klaus │Likelas │ │
│ │Nikolaus │Klasl │ │
│ │Niklas │ │ │
│ │Klaus │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Italian. │ Portuguese. │ Russian. │ Slavonic. │
│Nicola │Nicolaio │Nikolaj │Nikola │
│Nicolo │ │Nikolascha │Miklaoz │
│Cola │ │Kolinka │ │
│ │ │Kolja │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Polish. │ Lett. │ Finland. │ Ung. │
│Mikolej │Klavinsh │Laus │Mikos │
│ │Klassis │Nilo │ Lapland. │
│ │ │Niku │Nikka │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The German Sieg answers exactly to the Greek Nike.

With the _a_ before it, which in Greek contradicts the ensuing word, like the Latin _in_, and Teutonic _un_, we have Ἀνίκητoς, Aniketos, Anicetus, unconquered, the name of a pope, a friend of St. Polycarp, and an opponent of heresy, whence he is a saint both of East and West, and is called Aniceto at Rome, Anicet in France, and Anikita in Russia.[37]

-----

Footnote 37:

Liddell and Scott; Rollin; Jameson; Butler; Michaelis; Ellis,
_Domesday Book_; Warton, _English Poetry_.