Pancras (St.)

Patron saint of children. He was a noble Roman youth, martyred by Diocleʹtian at the age of fourteen (A.D. 304). (See Nicholas.)

St. Pancras, in Christian art, is represented as treading on a Saracen and bearing either a stone and sword, Of a book and palm-branch. The allusions are to his hatred of infidelity, and the implements of his martyrdom.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.