Chapter Nibelungen-Not to Nicotine of N by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Nibelungen-Not to Nicotine

Nibelungen-Not The second part of the famous German epic called the Nibelungen-Lied (q.v.).

Nibelungers Whoever possessed the “Nibelungen hoard” (q.v.). Thus at one time certain people of Norway were so called, but when Siegfried possessed himself of the hoard he was called King of the Nibelungers; and at the death of Siegfried, when the hoard was removed to Burgundy, the Burgundians were so called. (See Nibelung .)
    In all these Teutonic names ie = e, and ei = i.

Nic Frog (See Frog .)

Nice The Council of Nice. The first oecumencial council of the Christian Church, held under Constantine the Great at Nice, or Nicæa, in Asia Minor, to condemn the Arian heresy (325). The seventh oecumenical council was also held at Nice (787).

Nice as Ninepence A corruption of “Nice as nine-pins.” In the game of nine-pins, the “men” are set in three rows with the utmost exactitude or nicety. Nine-pence is an Irish shilling of 1561. (See Ninepence .)

Nicean Barks or Nycean Barks. Edgar Poe, in his lyric To Helen, says-

“Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently o'er a perfumed sea
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.”

   The way-worn wanderer was Dionysos or Bacchus, after his renowned conquests. His native shore was the Western Horn, called the Amalthean Horn. And the Nicean barks were vessels sent from the island Nysa, to which in infancy Dionysos was conveyed to screen him from Rhea. The perfumed sea was the sea surrounding Nysa, a paradisal island.

Nicene Creed (See Nice, Council Of.)

Niche A niche in the Temple of Fame. The Temple of Fame was the Pantheon, converted (1791) into a receptacle for illustrious Frenchmen. A niche in the temple is a place for a monument recording your name and deeds.

Nicholas (St.). The patron saint of boys, as St. Catherine is of girls. In Germany, a person assembles the children of a family or school on the 6th December (the eve of St. Nicholas), and distributes gilt nuts and sweetmeats; but if any naughty child is present, he receives the redoubtable punishment of the klaubauf. The same as Santa Claus and the Dutch Kriss Kringle (q.v.). (See Santa Klaus .)
   St. Nicholas. Patron saint of parish clerks. This is because he was the patron of scholars, who used to be called clerks.
   St. Nicholas. Patron saint of sailors, because he allayed a storm on a voyage to the Holy Land.
   St. Nicholas. The patron saint of Russia.
   St. Nicholas. The patron saint of Aberdeen.
   St. Nicholas, in Christian art, is represented in episcopal robes, and has either three purses or golden balls, or three children, as his distinctive symbols. The three purses are in allusion to the three purses given by him to three sisters to enable them to marry. The three children allude to the legend that an Asiatic gentleman sent his three boys to school at Athens, but told them to call on St. Nicholas for his benediction; they stopped at Myra for the night, and the innkeeper, to secure their baggage, murdered them in bed, and put their mangled bodies into a pickling-tub with some pork, intending to sell the whole as such. St. Nicholas had a vision of the whole affair, and went to the inn, when the man confessed the crime, and St. Nicholas raised the murdered boys to life again. (See Hone's Everyday Book, vol. i. col. 1556; Maitre Wace, Metrical Life of St. Nicholas.)
   Clerks or Knights of St. Nicholas. Thieves; so called because St. Nicholas was their patron saint; not that he aided them in their wrong-doing, but because on one occasion he induced some thieves to restore their plunder. Probably St. Nicholas is simply a pun for Nick, and thieves may be called the devil's clerks or knights with much propriety.

“I think yonder come prancing down the hills from Kingston a couple of St. Nicholas's clerks.”- Rowley: Match at Midnight (1633).

Nick in Scandinavian mythology, is a water-wraith or kelpie. There are nicks in sea, lake, river, and waterfall. Both Catholic and Protestant clergy have laboured to stir up an aversion to these beings. They are sometimes represented as half-child, half-horse, the hoofs being reversed, and