Secular Christmas stories man with supernatural powers living at the North Pole, much like magic and powerful characters in mythology: Santa Claus has supernatural powers and uses them to magnanimously deliver gifts to children around the world. Santa was based on the legends of Saint Nicholas. Santa was given an amplified mythological identity in the Clement Moore poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (the title of which is often misidentified as "Twas The Night Before Christmas.") Comparative mythologies have also noted the ancient Germanic myths of Thor driving a cart led by goats in the sky (which led to the folklore of the
Clement Moore Butler was thereafter chaplain to the United States minister at Rome, Italy, and the second rector of Grace Church (now St. Paul’s Within the Walls) in Rome (1861–1864). When Butler returned to the United States in 1864, he became professor of ecclesiastical history at the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, until 1884 when he retired due to ill health. Butler died on March 5, 1890, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. In 1836 Butler married Frances Livingston Hart (1816–1895) in Washington, DC. They had three children: Frances Livingston Butler, Helen Moore Butler and Clement Moore Butler. Frances was a niece of