The first reference to Blaise is the medical writings of Aëtius Amidenus (c. AD 500) where his aid is invoked in treating patients with objects stuck in the throat.

Marco Polo reported on the place where "Messer Saint Blaise obtained the glorious crown of martyrdom", Sebastea.

In 316 the governor of Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, Agricola, began a persecution of him by order of the Emperor Licinius, and Blaise was seized.

[1][5] The legend narrative is as follows: Blaise, who had studied philosophy in his youth, was a doctor in Sebaste in Armenia, the city of his birth, who exercised his art with miraculous ability, good-will, and piety.

His holiness was manifest through many miracles: from all around, people came to him to find cures for their spirit and their body; even wild animals came in herds to receive his blessing.

In 316, Agricola, the governor of Cappadocia and of Lesser Armenia, having arrived in Sebastia at the order of the emperor Licinius to kill the Christians, arrested the bishop.

Regardless, the governor, unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, beat him with a stick, ripped his flesh with iron combs, and beheaded him.

[6] As the governor's men led Blaise back to Sebastea, on the way, they met a poor woman whose pig had been seized by a wolf.

When he had reached the capital and was thrown in prison to await execution, the old woman whose pig he had saved came to see him, bringing two fine wax candles to dispel the gloom of his dark cell.

[7] According to the Acts, while Blaise was being taken into custody, a distraught mother, whose only child was choking on a fish bone, threw herself at his feet and implored his intercession.

[8] At the same time the following blessing is given: "Through the intercession of Saint Blaise, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from every disease of the throat and from every other illness".

At Dubrovnik, his feast is celebrated yearly on 3 February, when relics of the saint, his skull, a bit of bone from his throat and his right and left hands are paraded in reliquaries.

Chroniclers of Dubrovnik such as Rastic and Ranjina attribute his veneration there to a vision in 971 to warn the inhabitants of an impending attack by the Venetians, whose galleys had dropped anchor in Gruž and near Lokrum, ostensibly to resupply their water but furtively to spy out the city's defences.

The Senate summoned Stojko, who told them in detail how St Blaise had appeared before him as an old man with a long beard and a bishop's mitre and staff.

The popular enthusiasm for the saint is explained by the belief that Blaise had brought prosperity (as symbolised by the Woolsack) to England by teaching the English to comb wool.

[14] St Blaise Church, Sao Bras, Goa, India was a small Chapel built in 1541 by Croatian sailors and traders settled in the village.

[15] In Italy, Saint Blaise's remains rest at the Basilica on Monte San Biagio, a mountain named in his honour, over the town of Maratea, Basilicata, shipwrecked there during Leo III the Isaurian's iconoclastic persecutions, on their first journey out of Sebastea to Europe.

Locals come to the shrine dedicated to him to show their respect and devotion but also to ask him for help with healing someone who has fallen ill where a special prayer is required.