The historical evidence about St. Nicholas is relatively scarce. He is said to have been bishop of Myra (in what is present-day Turkey)in the fourth century. His body was moved to Bari, Italy in 1087 by Italian sailors and merchants and is still venerated there today. He is reputed to have been at the Council at Nicaea in 325 and to have confronted the heretic bishop Arius, although the evidence for this is less solid.

Nicholas was bishop of Myra during a time of famine. At one point, things got really grim, and the people were starving. This meant equally grim times for the local butcher, who had no source of meat. According to the story, he killed three young boys, pickled them, and put them in a vat. Or, in a version we have made into a play that the children of the parish love to perform, he kills the boys and runs them through his sausage machine to serve to his customers. Nicholas arrives on the scene just in the nick of time, and reverses the crank of the machine, sending the fresh sausage backwards and miraculously restoring the boys to life. Here, we see Nicholas as the patron saint of children.