Today is the feast of the honorable and gallant St. George. Yeah, today is the feast of the Dragonslayer. That would make a good title for a movie. heck, it probably IS the name of a movie! I love this story. George may or may not have been a knight who may or may not have been from Cappadocia. He sure was martyred in Lydda in Palestine in 303. But the rest of the story is the delight. George was riding by the town of Sylene in Lybia one day and he encountered a dragon -- a real fire-breathing dragon. This fearsome dragon had terrorized the people of the kingdom for some time. At first they fed it two sheep a day to placate it, but then, as these things will happen, they ran out of sheep! They then drew lots to feed it a human victim each day instead. That very day the lot fell to the king's daughter, the princess. She was dressed as a bride to meet her fate and was understandably crying when George found her. She told him her plight and he challenged the dragon and attacked it, taking the princess' own little belt and slipped it over the dragon's neck and led it back to the city.
The townspeople were awed and he addressed the crowd. If only they would believe in Jesus Christ and be baptized, he would slay the dragon. They readily agreed and he slew the beast. It is said 4 ox-carts were needed to haul the carcass away. He bade them goodbye, not before telling the king and his 15,000 subjects (not counting women and children), four things:
1) Maintain churches;
2) Honor priests;
3) Always go to Mass; and,
4) Show compassion for the poor.
He died testifying to the truth of Jesus Christ and averring that the gods of the pagans are devils. He died from beheading but not before being beaten with cudgels, broken on a wheel and boiled in molten lead, all to no apparent effect.
The dragon part of the story, though ancient, can't be trace further back than the 1100's, but the whole martyr-in-Palestine thing goes back almost to the 300's. But still it is an important part of the story. As G. K. Chesterton said, "The important thing is not that dragons can be slain, but how they can be slain."
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