Blaise was bishop of Sebaste in Armenia and was put to death there under Licinius, about the year 316. That much is the constant tradition of both East and West, and his cult is attested early and very widely. The detailed Acts are late — eighth century — and cannot carry the weight the popular story puts on them.
The story is the reason everyone knows him. Arrested and led to the governor, he is said to have healed on the road a boy who was choking to death on a fishbone, and to have told a poor woman whose pig a wolf had carried off where to find it. In prison she brought him candles, and to this day the blessing is given with two candles, tied in a cross and held to the throat: 'Through the intercession of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from every disease of the throat and from every other illness.' It is one of the very few blessings of the Roman Ritual that ordinary Catholics still queue for by name, every 3 February.
The iron combs with which his flesh was torn were the tools of the wool trade, and made him its patron. Dubrovnik has kept him as its protector since 971, when tradition says he warned a priest of a Venetian fleet preparing a surprise attack; the city's festival of Sveti Vlaho on his feast has been held ever since and is inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible heritage.