Soul Music (Terry David John Pratchett) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

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This recalls the legend of the original (Asiatic) St Nicholas, bishop of Myra in what is now Turkey, who threw a bag of gold (on three separate occasions) through the window of a poor man with three daughters, so the girls would have dowries, saving them from having to enter lives of prostitution.

I don’t know about other countries, but in the Netherlands we still celebrate St Nicholas’ day (on December 5th) rather than Christmas. Let me rephrase that. We do celebrate Christmas, but we have no tradition of a fat man in a red suit going ho-ho-ho while delivering presents. Instead, we get St Nicholas (‘Sinterklaas’), who also wears red, and comes over from Spain each year (don’t ask) to ride a white horse (not named Binky, as far as I know) over the rooftops and drop presents down the chimneys.