Nikolaustag is here again! It is becoming a tradition in Fyling Hall’s German lessons that our year 7s make their own Nikolausstiefel. What is that all about? On the 6th of November, St Nicholas’ Day (Nikolaustag) is celebrated in Germany. This goes back to the 3rd century, when Nicholas was the bishop of Myra, which is in what is Turkey today. He was a rich man, and known for helping poor people – notoriously he dropped three sacks of gold through a poor family’s chimney which saved their children from being sold into slavery.
Today, St Nicholas is still doing good. When children leave their polished boots outside their door in the eve of St Nicholas’s Day, they will find them filled in the morning; if they have been good in the previous year, they will find nuts, biscuits, fruit and sweets, if not – a piece of coal.
So after hearing all about Nikolaus and his helpers, the scary Knecht Ruprecht and Krampus, we sang the Nikolauslied and made and decorated our own Stiefel (boots).
And would you believe it? Nikolaus is actually also coming to Yorkshire! In the next German lesson which fell on the 6th December, the children retrieved their Nikolausstiefel. Did anyone get coal? Of course not!
Regine Trotter, Teacher of German