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
Saint Nicholas Nicholas's death. The earliest complete account of Nicholas's life that has survived to the present is a "Life of Saint Nicholas", written in the early ninth century by Michael the Archimandrite (814–842), nearly 500 years after Nicholas's probable death. Despite its extremely late date, Michael the Archimandrite's "Life of Saint Nicholas" is believed to heavily rely on older written sources and oral traditions. The identity and reliability of these sources, however, remains uncertain. Catholic historian D. L. Cann and medievalist Charles W. Jones both consider Michael the Archimandrite's "Life" the only account of Saint Nicholas that is likely to contain