December Saga

[Tinkerpuss]

Cockles, but no heart, for one who was short of a fourth at bridge (8) ?O?A?I?S
Is it nomalies?

[Jumbuck]

Horatius - Horatius Cocles (i.e. remove middle letter of cockles) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatius_Cocles

[Tinkerpuss]

Thank you so much Jumbuck, I managed every other answer without help but was making this more difficult by going down the road of linguistic semantics!

[Jumbuck]

you're welcome