08/11/03 01:04:11
>>406の続きです
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It took a littele longer for Saint Nicholas,the stern bishop with a tall pinted hat on
his head andriding on a horse,to become the jolly Saint Nicholas we know today.
In 1822,Clement Moore,a school teacher in New York,wrote a famous poem called
A Visit from Saint Nicholas. This poem described an image of a different Saint Nicholas
who visited children on the night before Christmas.
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'It was the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring,not even a mouse;The stockings were hung by the chimmey
with care, In hopes that St.Saint Nicholas soon would be there;
a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and
quick,Down the chimmy St.Nicholas scame with a bound. He was dressed all in fur,from
his head to his foot,
He had a broad face and alittle round belly That shook, when he laughed,like a bowlful of jelly.
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This poem does not present an image of a religious Saint Nicholas. Instead,it introduces
a fat and jolly little old man riding in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Moore described this character
very vividly,as if he had seen him in real life. A Visit from Saint Nicholas was published as a
picture story book and read by many people in the United States in those days.
Moore's Saint Nicholas was drawn as an elf in the storybook. But in the 1930s,the image
of Santa Claus changer again. This time, he looked like somebody's grandfather,
smiling in an advertisement for a soft drink. This was how the Santa Claus we are familiar
with today was born.