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Saint George and the Dragon

{{Short description|Medieval legend}}

{{Other uses}}

[[File:Albrecht Dürer, Saint George Killing the Dragon, 1501-1504, NGA 6715.jpg|thumb|220px|Saint George Killing the Dragon,

woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (1501/4)]]

In a legend, Saint George{{Emdash}}a soldier venerated in Christianity—defeats a dragon at Dragon Hill, Uffington. The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tribute once a day. And, one day, the princess herself was chosen as the next offering. As she was walking towards the dragon's cave, St. George saw her and asked her why she was crying. The princess told the saint about the dragon's atrocities and asked him to flee immediately, in fear that he might be killed too. But the saint refused to flee, slew the dragon, and rescued the princess. The narrative was first set in Cappadocia in the earliest sources of the 11th and 12th centuries, but transferred to Libya in the 13th-century Golden Legend.[http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/whatley-saints-lives-in-middle-english-collections-st-george-and-the-dragon "St. George and the Dragon: Introduction"] in:

E. Gordon Whatley, Anne B. Thompson, Robert K. Upchurch, eds. (2004). Saints' Lives in Middle Spanish Collections.

The narrative has pre-Christian origins (Jason and Medea, Perseus and Andromeda, Typhon, etc.), and is recorded in various saints' lives prior to its attribution to Saint George specifically. It was particularly attributed to Saint Theodore Tiro in the 9th and 10th centuries, and was first transferred to Saint George in the 11th century. The oldest known record of Saint George slaying a dragon is found in a Georgian text of the 11th century.{{Cite book |title=Pavnisi|last=Privalova|first=E. L. |publisher=Metsniereba|year=1977|location=Tbilisi|page=73|language=ru}}{{Cite book |url=http://mapageweb.umontreal.ca/tuitekj/publications/Tuite-2020-St%20George-1-Old%20Georgian%20.pdf |title=Sharing Myths, Texts and Sanctuaries in the South Caucasus: Apocryphal Themes in Literatures, Arts and Cults from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages|chapter=The Old Georgian Version of the Miracle of St George, the Princess and the Dragon: Text, Commentary and Translation |last=Tuite |first=Kevin |editor-last=Dorfmann-Lazarev|editor-first=Igor|date=2022|publisher= Peeters|isbn=9789042947146|location=Leuven|pages=60–94|language=en}}

The legend and iconography spread rapidly through the Byzantine cultural sphere in the 12th century. It reached Western Christian tradition still in the 12th century, via the Crusades. The knights of the First Crusade believed that Saint George, along with his fellow soldier-saints Demetrius, Maurice, Theodore and Mercurius, had fought alongside them at Antioch and Jerusalem. The legend was popularised in Western tradition in the 13th century based on its Latin versions in the Speculum Historiale and the Golden Legend. At first limited to the courtly setting of chivalric romance, the legend was popularised in the 13th century and became a favourite literary and pictorial subject in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and it has become an integral part of the Christian traditions relating to Saint George in both Eastern and Western tradition.

Origins

=Pre-Christian predecessors=

{{further|Chaoskampf|Thracian horseman|Saint Theodore Tiro|Tetri Giorgi|Verethragna|Zahhak|Perseus and Andromeda}}

The iconography of military saints Theodore, George and Demetrius as horsemen

is a direct continuation of the Roman-era "Thracian horseman" type iconography.

The iconography of the dragon appears to grow out of the serpent entwining the "tree of life" on one hand, and with the draco standard used by late Roman cavalry on the other.

Horsemen spearing serpents and boars are widely represented in Roman-era stelae commemorating cavalry soldiers.

A carving from Krupac, Serbia, depicts Apollo and Asclepius as Thracian horsemen, shown besides the serpent entwined around the tree. Another stele shows the Dioscuri as Thracian horsemen on either side of the serpent-entwined tree, killing a boar with their spears.Paul Stephenson, The Serpent Column: A Cultural Biography, Oxford University Press (2016), [https://books.google.com/books?id=O72SDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA179 179–182].

The development of the hagiographical narrative of the dragon-fight parallels the development of iconography.

It draws from pre-Christian dragon myths. The Coptic version of the Saint George legend, edited by E. A. Wallis Budge in 1888, and estimated by Budge to be based on a source of the 5th or 6th century, names "governor Dadianus", the persecutor of Saint George as "the dragon of the abyss", a Greek myth with similar elements of the legend is the battle between Bellerophon and the Chimera. Budge makes explicit the parallel to pre-Christian myth:

I doubt much of the whole story of Saint George is anything more than one of the many versions of the old-world story of the conflict between Light and Darkness, or Ra and Apepi, and Marduk and Tiamat, woven upon a few slender threads of historical fact. Tiamat, the scaly, winged, foul dragon, and Apepi the powerful enemy of the glorious Sungod, were both destroyed and made to perish in the fire which he sent against them and their fiends: and Dadianus, also called the 'dragon', with his friends the sixty-nine governors, was also destroyed by fire called down from heaven by the prayer of Saint George.E. A. Wallis Budge, The Martyrdom and Miracles of Saint George of Cappadocia (1888), [https://archive.org/stream/martyrdommiracle00budguoft#page/n37/mode/2up xxxi–xxxiii];

[https://archive.org/stream/martyrdommiracle00budguoft#page/206/mode/2up 206], [https://archive.org/stream/martyrdommiracle00budguoft#page/222/mode/2up 223].

Budge (1930), 33–44 also likens George against Dadianus to Horos against Set or Ra against Apep.

See also Joseph Eddy Fontenrose, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (1959), [https://books.google.com/books?id=wqeVv09Y6hIC&pg=PA518 p. 518] (fn 8).

In anticipation of the Saint George iconography, first noted in the 1870s, a Coptic stone fenestrella shows a mounted hawk-headed figure fighting a crocodile, interpreted by the Louvre as Horus killing a metamorphosed Setekh.Charles Clermont-Ganneau, "Horus et Saint Georges, d'après un bas-relief inédit du Louvre". Revue archéologique, 1876.

{{cite web|title=Horus on horseback {{!}} Louvre Museum {{!}} Paris|url=http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/horus-horseback|website=louvre.fr}}.

File:Burgas Archaeological Museum - Thracian rider - P1020149.JPG|Thracian horseman with serpent-entwined tree (2nd century)

File:Grosvenor Museums - Grabstein 2 Kavallerist.jpg|Funerary relief of a Roman cavalryman trampling a barbarian warrior (4th or 5th century).
Grosvenor Museum, Chester

File:Horus horseman-E 4850-IMG 4871-gradient.jpg|Fenestrella interpreted by the Louvre as Horus on horseback spearing Set in the shape of a crocodile (4th century)

=Christianised iconography=

Depictions of "Christ militant" trampling a serpent are found in Christian art of the late 5th century. Iconography of the horseman with spear overcoming evil becomes current in the early medieval period.

Iconographic representations of St Theodore as dragon-slayer are dated to as early as the 7th century, certainly by the early 10th century (the oldest certain depiction of Theodore killing a dragon is at Aghtamar, dated {{Circa|920}}).

Theodore is reported as having destroyed a dragon near Euchaita in a legend not younger than the late 9th century.

Early depictions of a horseman killing a dragon are unlikely to represent Saint George, who in the 10th century was depicted as killing a human figure, not a dragon.{{sfnp|Walter|1995|p=320}}

File:Vinica Christopher George.jpg ceramic icon of Saints Christopher and George as dragon-slayers]]

The earliest image of St Theodore as a horseman (named in Latin) is from Vinica, North Macedonia, and, if genuine, dates to the 6th or 7th century. Here, Theodore is not slaying a dragon, but holding a draco standard.

One of the Vinica icons also has the oldest representation of Saint George with a dragon:

George stands besides a cynocephalous Saint Christopher, both saints treading on snakes with human heads, and aiming at their heads with spears.Jan Bazant, "St. George at Prague Castle and Perseus: an Impossible Encounter?",

Studia Hercynia 19.1-2 (2015), 189-201 (fig. 4).

Maguire (1996) has connected the shift from unnamed equestrian heroes used in household magic to the more regulated iconography of named saints to the closer regulation of sacred imagery following the iconoclasm of the 730s.

File:Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Drawing Arcus Einhardi, 17th c - detail4.jpg

In the West, a Carolingian-era depiction of a Roman horseman trampling and piercing a dragon between two soldier saints with lances and shields was put on the foot of a crux gemmata, formerly in the Treasury of the Basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht (lost since the 18th c.). The representation survives in a 17th-century drawing, now in the {{Lang|fr|Bibliothèque Nationale de France|italic=no}} in Paris.

File:Yilanli Kilise dragon.jpg

The "Christianisation" of the Thracian horseman iconography can be traced to the Cappadocian cave churches of Göreme, where frescoes of the 10th century show military saints on horseback confronting serpents with one, two or three heads. One of the earliest examples is from the church known as Mavrucan 3 ({{interlanguage link|Güzelöz, Yeşilhisar|tr}}), generally dated to the 10th century,"Thierry 1972, who dates the fresco to as early as the seventh century. However, this seems unlikely, as it would be three hundred years earlier than any other church fresco in the region."

Stephenson (2016), [https://books.google.com/books?id=O72SDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA180 180 (fn 89)].

see also: {{harvp|Walter|2003}}, pp. 56, 125, plate 27. which portrays two "sacred riders" confronting two serpents twined around a tree, in a striking parallel to the Dioskuroi stela, except that the riders are now attacking the snake in the "tree of life" instead of a boar.

In this example, at least, there appear to be two snakes with separate heads, but other examples of 10th-century Cappadocia show polycephalous snakes.

A poorly preserved wall-painting at the {{interlanguage link|Yılanlı Kilise (Göreme)|lt=Yılanlı Kilise|tr|Yılanlı Kilise (Göreme)}} ("Snake Church") that depicts the two saints Theodore and George attacking a dragon has been tentatively dated to the 10th century,{{harvp|Johns|2017}} {{plain link|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fCJBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT170|name=p. 170}}

"the pairing of the two holy dragon-slayers has no narrative source, and the symbolic meaning of the scene is spelled out in an inscription written on both sides of the central cross, which compares the victory of the two saints over the dragon to Christ's triumph over evil on the cross." or alternatively even to the mid-9th.{{sfnp|Walter|2003|p=128}}{{request quotation|date=November 2019}}

A similar example, but showing three equestrian saints, Demetrius, Theodore and George, is from the "Zoodochos Pigi" chapel in central Macedonia in Greece, in the prefecture of Kilkis, near the modern village of Kolchida, dated to the 9th or 10th century.Melina Paissidou, [http://ikee.lib.auth.gr/record/278662/files/Heroes_Cults_Saints_M_Paisidu.pdf "Warrior Saints as Protectors of the Byzantine Army in the Palaiologan Period: the Case of the Rock-cut Hermitage in Kolchida (Kilkis Prefecture)"], in: Ivanka Gergova

Emmanuel Moutafov (eds.), ГЕРОИ • КУЛТОВЕ • СВЕТЦИ / Heroes Cults Saints Sofija (2015), 181-198.

A 12th-century depiction of the mounted dragon-slayer, presumably depicting Theodore, not George, is found in four muqarna panels in the nave of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo.{{harvp|Johns|2017}} {{plain link|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fCJBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT170|name=p. 170f.}}

Jeremy Johns, "Muslim Artists, Christian Patrons and the Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina (Palermo, Sicily, circa 1143 CE)", [https://darmuseum.org.kw/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Hadeeth-No.40-ENG.pdf Hadiith ad-Dar 40] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727074901/http://darmuseum.org.kw/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Hadeeth-No.40-ENG.pdf |date=2020-07-27 }} (2016), p. 15.

=Transfer to Saint George=

File:St Theodor & George Sinai 9-10th century.jpg, 9th or 10th century]]

The dragon motif was transferred to the George legend from that of his fellow soldier saint, Saint Theodore Tiro.Robertson, Duncan (1998), The Medieval Saints' Lives, pp. 51 f.

The transfer of the dragon iconography from Theodore, or Theodore and George as "Dioskuroi" to George on his own, first becomes tangible in the early 11th century.Oya Pancaroğlu, “The Itinerant Dragon-Slayer: Forging Paths of Image and Identity in Medieval Anatolia.” Gesta 43, no. 2 (2004): 153. https://doi.org/10.2307/25067102

The oldest certain images of Saint George combatting the serpent are still found in Cappadocia.

Golden Legend

In the well-known version from Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda aurea (The Golden Legend, 1260s), the narrative episode of Saint George and the Dragon took place somewhere he called "Silene" in what in medieval times was referred to as "Libya" (basically anywhere in North Africa, west of the Nile).{{citation|author=Jacobus (de Voragine)|editor-last1=Graesse |editor-first1=Theodor |title=Cap. LVIII. De sancto Georgio |work=Legenda aurea: vulgo Historia lombardica dicta

|year=1890|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-1tHAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA260 |pages=260–264}}{{citation|author=Jacobus (de Voragine)|editor-last1=Caxton |editor-first1=William (tr.)|title=Here followeth the Life of S. George Martyr |work=The Golden Legend: Or, Lives of the Saints|volume=3 |publisher=Dent |year=1900 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wJhJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA126 |page=126}} Silene was being plagued by a venom-spewing dragon dwelling in a nearby pond, poisoning the countryside. To prevent it from affecting the city itself, the people offered it two sheep daily, then a man and a sheep, and finally their children and youths, chosen by lottery. One time the lot fell on the king's daughter. The king offered all his gold and silver to have his daughter spared, but the people refused. The daughter was sent out to the lake, dressed as a bride, to be fed to the dragon.

Saint George arrived at the spot. The princess tried to send him away, but he vowed to remain. The dragon emerged from the pond while they were conversing. Saint George made the Sign of the Cross and charged it on horseback, seriously wounding it with his lance.{{Efn|Caxton gives "with his spear", but Latin text gives {{lang|la|lanceam fortiter vibrans}}.}} He then called to the princess to throw him her girdle ({{lang|la|zona}}), and he put it around the dragon's neck. Wherever she walked, the dragon followed the girl like a "meek beast" on a leash.{{Efn|Caxton gives "meek beast", but Latin text gives "mansuetissima canis (tamest dog)".}}

The princess and Saint George led the dragon back to the city of Silene, where it terrified the population. Saint George offered to kill the dragon if they consented to become Christians and be baptized. Fifteen thousand men including the king of Silene converted to Christianity.{{Efn|Latin text gives XX thousand.}} George then killed the dragon, beheading it with his sword, and the body was carted out of the city on four ox-carts. The king built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint George on the site where the dragon died and a spring flowed from its altar with water that cured all disease.Thus Jacobus de Voragine, in William Caxton's translation ([http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/GL-vol3-george.html On-line text]).

Only the Latin version involves the saint striking the dragon with the spear, before killing it with the sword.{{citation|last=Johns|first=Jeremy |title=Muslim Artists and Christian Moels in the Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina |editor-last=Bacile |editor-first=Rosa |work=Romanesque and the Mediterranean |publisher=Routledge |year=2017|isbn=9781351191050 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fCJBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT199}}, note 96

The Golden Legend narrative is the main source of the story of Saint George and the Dragon as received in Western Europe,

and is therefore relevant for Saint George as patron saint of England.

The princess remains unnamed in the Golden Legend version, and the name "Sabra" is supplied by Elizabethan era writer Richard Johnson in his Seven Champions of Christendom (1596). In the work, she is recast as a princess of Egypt.{{citation|editor-last=Chambers |editor-first=Edmund Kerchever |title=The Mediaeval Stage: book I. Minstrelsy. book II. Folk drama |location=Halle |publisher=M. Niemeyer |year=1878 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8OfYqjbX6dwC&pg=PA221 |page=221, note 2}}{{citation|editor-last=Graf |editor-first=Arturo |title=Auberon (I complementi della Chanson d'Huon de Bordeaux I) |location=Halle |publisher=M. Niemeyer |year=1878 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2iBYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA261 |page=261 |series=Archivio per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari (10)|language=it}} This work takes great liberties with the material, and makes Saint George marry Sabra{{Efn|Saint George is supposed to have been martyred as a virgin according to his hagiography.}} and have English children, one of whom becomes Guy of Warwick.{{citation|last=Richmond |first=Velma Bourgeois |title=The Legend of Guy of Warwick |location=New York |publisher=Garland |year=1996|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ptyvSphvRtsC&pg=PA130 |page=221, note 2|isbn=9780815320852 }}

Alternative names given to the princess in Italian sources still of the 13th century are Cleolinda and Aia.{{citation|last=Runcini |first=Romolo |title=Metamorfosi del fantastico: luoghi e figure nella letteratura, nel cinema, massmedia |publisher=Lithos |date=1999 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VL4ZAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Aia%22 |page=184, note 13|isbn=9788886584364 |language=it}} Johnson also supplied the name of Saint George's sword: "Ascalon".{{cite book |last=Johnson |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Johnson (16th century) |date=1861 |title=The Seven Champions of Christendom |url=https://archive.org/details/TheSevenChampionsOfChristendom |location=London |publisher=J. Blackwood & Co |page=7 }} The story of Saint George, as the Red Cross Knight and the patron saint of England, slaying the dragon, which represents sin, and Princess Una as George's true love and an allegory representing the Protestant church as the one true faith, was told in altered fashion in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.{{cite journal | url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/695582#:~:text=2%20The%20Faerie%20Queene%20is,%2C%20and%2For%20the%20devil | doi=10.1086/695582 | title="The dragon is sin": Spenser's Book I as Evangelical Fantasy | date=2018 | last1=Christian | first1=Margaret | journal=Spenser Studies | volume=31-32 | pages=349–368 | s2cid=192276004 }}{{cite web | url=https://mythbank.com/una/ | title=Una in the Faerie Queen: An Allegory of the One True Church | date=16 May 2022 }}

File:Edward Burne-Jones- Princess Sabra (the King's Daughter).JPG|Princess Sabra (the King's Daughter), by Edward Burne-Jones, 1865

File:Burne ,Princess Sabra Led to the Dragon.jpg|Princess Sabra Led to the Dragon by Edward Burne-Jones, 1866

File:Henry Treffry Dunn (1838-1899) - The Theodore Watts-Dunton Cabinet, The Princess Sabra Taken to the Dragon - 1288304.3 - National Trust.jpg|The Princess Sabra Taken to the Dragon, by Henry Treffry Dunn, 1896

File:Burne Jones Saint George and The Dragon The Princess Tied to the Tree 1866.jpg|The Princess Tied to the Tree by Edward Burne-Jones, 1866

File:Edward Burne-Jones - The fight- St George kills the dragon VI - Google Art ProjectFXD.jpg|The Fight: Saint George Kills the Dragon, by Edward Burne-Jones, 1866

File:St. George Slaying The Dragon, With Una Praying In Background, 1904 (Detail) (8415582011).jpg|Saint George Slaying The Dragon, With Una Praying In The Background, by Phoebe Anna Traquair, 1904

File:William Bell Scott - Una and the Lion.jpg|Una and the Lion by William Bell Scott, 1860

File:GF Watts Una Red Cross Knight.jpg|Una and the Red Cross Knight by George Frederic Watts, 1860

File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - St George and Princess Sabra.jpg|Saint George and Princess Sabra by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1862

File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - The Wedding of St George and Princess Sabra.jpg|The Wedding of Saint George and Princess Sabra by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1857

Iconography

{{further|Thracian horseman|Uastyrdzhi|Tetri Giorgi}}

=Medieval iconography=

File:George kappad.jpg in Göreme, Cappadocia. Dated to the early 11th century, this image has been identified as the oldest known depiction of Saint George as dragon-slayer.

Jonathan David Arthur Good, Saint George for England: Sanctity and National Identity, 1272-1509 (2004), p. 102. ]]

==Eastern==

The saint is depicted in the style of a Roman cavalryman in the tradition of the "Thracian Heros".

There are two main iconographic types, the "concise" form showing only George and the dragon,

and the "detailed" form also including the princess and the city walls or towers of Lacia (Lasia) with spectators witnessing the miracle.

The "concise" type originates in Cappadocia, in the 10th to 11th century (transferred from the same iconography associated with Saint Theodore of Tiro in the 9th to 10th century).

The earliest certain example of the "detailed" form may be a fresco from Pavnisi (dated c. 1160), although the examples from Adishi, Bochorma and Ikvi may be slightly earlier.Walter (2003:142).

Georgian

St George of Parakheti.jpg|Saint George of Parakheti, Georgia, late 10th century

Icon of St. George from Labechina, Racha region of Georgia, XI century.png|Saint George of Labechina, Racha, Georgia, early 11th century

Kondakov 1890. St George icon from Likhauri.jpg|Icon of Saint George and the dragon from Likhauri (Ozurgeti Municipality), Georgia, 12th century

St George enamel icon (Georgia).jpg|A 15th-century Georgian cloisonné enamel icon

Greek

Byzantine - St George and the Dragon - Walters 41205.jpg|Byzantine bas-relief of Saint George and the Dragon (steatite), 12th century

St George Icon Sinai 13th century.jpg|Monumental vita icon at Sinai, first half of the 13th century, likely by a Greek artist. The dragon episode is shown in one of twenty panels depicting the saint's life.

Saint George icon in Pyrgos, Santorini.jpg|Greek icon of St George with the youth of Mytilene, 15th century, Pyrgos, Santorini

File:Chanter Angelos Akotandos - St George on Horseback, Slaying the Dragon - Google Art Project.jpg|Icon by Angelos Akotandos, Crete (first half of the 15th century)

St George - Google Art Project.jpg|"Pedestrian" St George, Crete, second half of the 15th century

Damaskenos Saint-George-and-Saint-Demetrius.jpg|Michael Damaskinos (16th century), Saint George killing the dragon, alongside Saint Mercurius killing Julian

Russian

The oldest example in Russia found on walls of the church of St George in Staraya Ladoga, dated {{Circa|1167}}.

In Russian tradition, the icon is known as {{lang|ru|Чудо Георгия о змие}}; i.e., "the miracle of George and the dragon". The saint is mostly shown on a white horse, facing right, but sometimes also on a black horse, or facing left.notably the icon known as "Black George", showing the saint both on a black horse and facing left, made in Novgorod in the first half of the 15th century ([https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=62490&partId=1&searchText=icon+george&page=1 BM 1986,0603.1])"a few 14th–16th century Novgorod icons such as the 'Miracle of St George', a mid-14th-century icon from the Morozov collection and now in the Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow (Bruk and Iovleva 1995, no. 21), 'St George, Nikita and the Deesis', a 16th-century icon in the Russian Museum, St Petersburg, (Likhachov, Laurina and Pushkariov 1980, fig. 237) and on some Northern Russian icons, for instance, the 'Miracle of St George and his Life' from Ustjuznan and dating from the first half of the 16th century (Rybakov 1995, fig. 214)"

[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/online_research_catalogues/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=62490&partid=1&catalogueOnly=true&catParentPageid=25390&output=bibliography%2F!!%2FOR%2F!!%2F6256%2F!%2F%2F!%2FA%20Catalogue%20of%20the%20Russian%20Icons%20in%20the%20British%20Museum%2F!%2F%2F!!%2F%2F!!!%2F&catalogueName=Icons%20in%20the%20British%20Museum&catalogueSection=A%20catalogue%20of%20the%20Russian%20icons%20in%20the%20British%20Museum&sortBy=catNumber British Museum Russian Icon "The Miracle of St George and the Dragon / Black George"].

The princess is usually not included. Another motif shows George on horseback with the youth of Mytilene sitting behind him.

Святой Георгий Победоносец, фреска 12 века, Старая Ладога.jpg|The Staraya Ladoga fresco, {{Circa|1167}}

S.George (Novgorod, mid. 14 c, GTG).jpg|14th-century icon from Novgorod

Black.George.14.cent.Museum.of.Russian.icon.png|14th-century icon from Rostov

File:S.George (Novgorod, 14th c., Russian museum).jpg|Novgorod vita icon, 14th century; the "detailed" dragon iconography takes the central panel.

File:S.George (Moscow, 15th c., Korin's house-museum).jpg|Russian icon of the "detailed" type, Moscow, early 15th century

File:StGeorge-RussianMuseum.jpg|Novgorod icon, late 15th century

File:S.George (Russian North, end 15-early 16th c., GTG).jpg|Northern Russian icon of the "detailed" type, the saint is exceptionally slaying the dragon with his sword ({{Circa|1500|lk=no}}).

File:Святий Юрій Змієборець.jpg|Chełm school, 16th century

Ethiopian

File:Äthiopien Grosses Triptychon Museum Rietberg EFA 15 img05.jpg|Great Triptych, Ethiopia, {{Circa|1700}}, tempera on fabric on wood; Museum Rietberg, Zurich, Switzerland

File:Alwan Codex 27 Ethiopian Biblical Manuscript.jpg|Alwan Codex 27 Ethiopian Biblical Icon - Saint George (20th century)

{{clear}}

==Western==

The motif of Saint George as a knight on horseback slaying the dragon first appears in western art in the second half of the 13th century.

The tradition of the saint's arms being shown as the red-on-white Saint George's Cross develops in the 14th century.

File:20030708570DR Ankershagen Dorfkirche Fresken.jpg|13th-century fresco in Ankershagen, Mecklenburg

File:St George and the Dragon Verona ms 1853 26r.jpg|Miniature from a Passio Sancti Georgii manuscript (Verona, second half of 13th century)

File:St George BNF Fr 241 101v.jpg|Miniature from a manuscript of Legenda Aurea, Paris, 1348

File:Saint George et le dragon, enluminure.jpg|Book of Hours ({{Circa|1380}}?)

File:St George Royal19BXVII 109.jpg|Miniature from a manuscript of Legenda Aurea, Paris, 1382

File:De Grey Hours f.31.v St. George and the dragon.png|De Grey Hours ({{Circa|1400|lk=no}})

File:Anga kyrka-Mural painting02.jpg|Fresco of the full legend, Anga Church, Gotland, Sweden (mid 15th century)

File:Heures Ch d'Angoulême Saint Georges XVe.jpg|Miniature from Heures de Charles d'Angoulême, Cognac, France, f.53v (1475–1500)

File:Saint George and the Dragon alabaster sculpture.jpg|Saint George and the Dragon, tinted alabaster, English, {{Circa|1375}}–1420 (National Gallery of Art, Washington)

File:St Georgsgruppe, um 1500.jpg|Wooden sculpture, {{Circa|1500}}, Gottorf Castle

=Renaissance=

File:Bernat Martorell - Saint George Killing the Dragon - Google Art Project.jpg|Saint George and the Dragon, painting by Martorell in the Art Institute of Chicago (1435)

File:Stockholm-Storkyrkan (St.Georg).jpg|Saint George and the Dragon, wood carving by Bernt Notke in Stockholm's Storkyrkan (1470s)

File:1512 Meister des Döbelner Hochaltars Hl. Georg zu Pferde anagoria.JPG|Saint George on Horseback, Master of the Döbeln Altarpiece, 1511/13, Hamburger Kunsthalle

File:St GeorgeEnglish.JPG|Woodcut frontispiece of Alexander Barclay, Lyfe of Seynt George (Westminster, 1515)

File:Gillis Coignet - St George the Great.jpg|Gillis Coignet – Saint George the Great (1581)

=Early modern and modern art=

Paintings

Sculptures

  • The sculptures which form part of the clock of Liberty's store in Regent Street, London (19th century).[http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMFFKY_Libertys_Clock_Great_Marlborough_Street_London_UK The Liberty Clock] waymarking.com.
  • Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, Saint George and the Dragon, bronze, State Library of Victoria, 1889{{cite web|url=https://gargarean.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/forecourt-statues-of-the-state-library-of-victoria|title=Forecourt Statues of The State Library of Victoria|work=THE GARGAREAN|publisher=WordPress.com|access-date=31 January 2016|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304215742/https://gargarean.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/forecourt-statues-of-the-state-library-of-victoria/|url-status=dead}}
  • Salvador Dalí, Saint George and the Dragon, Open Air Museum in Cosenza, 1947
  • Edward Seago, Saint George and the Dragon, silver, automobile mascot used for the British monarch's cars, 1952.{{cite web|url=http://www.thechauffeur.com/the-royal-fleet-of-limousines/|title=The Royal Fleet of Limousines|work=The Chauffeur|date=6 October 2005|access-date=18 October 2018}}
  • Zurab Tsereteli, sculpture in front of the {{interlanguage link|Victory Monument (Moscow)|ru|Монумент Победы|lt=Victory Monument}} at {{interlanguage link|Victory Park (Moscow)|ru|Парк Победы (Москва)|lt=Victory Park}}, Moscow, 1995
  • Zurab Tsereteli, Saint George Statue, Tbilisi, 2005
  • Marcus Canning and Christian de Vietri, Ascalon, abstract sculpture in front of St George's Cathedral, Perth, 2011{{Cite web |title=Ascalon {{!}} St George's Cathedral |url=https://www.perthcathedral.org/ascalon/ |access-date=2022-11-27 |website=www.perthcathedral.org}}

Mosaic

Engravings

Prints

  • On banknotes issued by the Bank of England:
  • £1 note, 1917 until 1933, on obverse, with portrait of George V; 1928 until 1960, on reverse, duplicated.
  • £5 note, 1957 until 1967, on obverse, with portrait of Britannia.
  • £20 note, 1970 until 1993, on obverse, with portrait of Elizabeth II.{{cite web|url=http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Documents/withdrawnrefguide.pdf|title=Withdrawn Banknotes: Reference Guide|publisher=Bank of England|access-date=17 January 2017|archive-date=29 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170329073154/http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Documents/withdrawnrefguide.pdf|url-status=dead}}

File:Châtenois StGeorges25.JPG|17th-century statue in Église Saint-Georges de Châtenois, France

File:Châtenois StGeorges30.JPG|18th-century statue in Église Saint-Georges de Châtenois, France

File:Mattia Preti - St. George Victorious over the Dragon - WGA18398.jpg|Saint George and the Dragon, by Mattia Preti (1678), in Gozo, Malta

File:St. George the Victorious - Google Art Project.jpg|Unknown painter from Ukraine, 18th century

File:Pendant with Saint George.jpg|Pendant with Saint George by Lluís Masriera i Rosés (1902), Barcelona

File:St. George and the Dragon - Briton Riviere.jpg|St. George and the Dragon by Briton Reviere ({{Circa|1914}})

File:1914 Sydney Half Sovereign - St. George.jpg|1914 sovereign with Benedetto Pistrucci's engraving

File:Britain Needs You at Once - WWI recruitment poster - Parliamentary Recruiting Committee Poster No. 108.jpg|WWI British recruitment poster

File:2002 Bentley State Limousine ornament.jpg|Edward Seago's St. George and the Dragon automobile mascot used by the British monarch (1952)

File:MBF20160630.jpg|Central maiolica panel about the battle of St. George the Victorious with the Serpent 1911–1913, artists Sergey Chekhonin, Sergey Vasilyevich Gerasimov

File:Wiki tile murals bolshaya pirogovskaya 9 moscow.jpg|A small image of St. George, with the plot of the fresco of the Church of St. George in Staraya Ladoga in a stylized icon case on the facade, above the main porches, the maiolica was made in 1911–1913 by Anatoly Alexandrovich Ostrogradsky.

File:Манежная площадь - panoramio (1).jpg|Zurab Tsereteli's St. George and the Dragon on the top of the {{interlanguage link|Okhotny Ryad (shopping mall)|ru|Охотный ряд (торговый комплекс)|lt=Okhotny Ryad}} shopping center (1997) in Moscow, Russia

Literary adaptations

Edmund Spenser expands on the Saint George and the Dragon story in Book I of the Fairy Queen, initially referring to the hero as the Redcross Knight.

William Shakespeare refers to Saint George and the Dragon in Richard III ( Advance our standards, set upon our foes Our ancient world of courage fair St. George Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons act V, sc. 3), Henry V ( The game's afoot: follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' act III, sc. 1), and also in King Lear (act I).

A 17th-century broadside ballad paid homage to the feat of George's dragon slaying. Titled "St. George and the Dragon", the ballad considers the importance of Saint George in relation to other heroes of epic and Romance, ultimately concluding that all other heroes and figures of epic or romance pale in comparison to the feats of George.{{cite web|url=http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/34079/xml |title=New Ballad of St. George and the Dragon (EBBA 34079)|work=English Broadside Ballad Archive|publisher=University of California at Santa Barbara, Department of English |access-date=31 January 2016|location=National Library of Scotland - Crawford 1349}}

The Banner of St George by Edward Elgar is a ballad for chorus and orchestra, words by Shapcott Wensley (1879).

The 1898 Dream Days by Kenneth Grahame includes a chapter entitled "The Reluctant Dragon", in which an elderly Saint George and a benign dragon stage a mock battle to satisfy the townsfolk and get the dragon introduced into society. Later made into a film by Walt Disney Productions, and set to music by John Rutter as a children's operetta.

In 1935 Stanley Holloway recorded a humorous retelling of the tale as St. George and the Dragon written by Weston and Lee.

In the 1950s, Stan Freberg and Daws Butler wrote and performed St. George and the Dragon-Net (a spoof of the tale and of Dragnet) for Freberg's radio show. The story's recording became the first comedy album to sell over a million copies.

Margaret Hodges retold the legend in a 1984 children's book (Saint George and the Dragon) with Caldecott Medal-winning illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman.

The cover art to the album Forward into War by British Rock Against Communism band Vengeance is a depiction of Saint George and the dragon, depicting the saint as a neo-Nazi skinhead.

The Forever Knights that serve as a recurring antagonist faction in the Ben 10 are revealed in the third series Ben 10: Ultimate Alien to have been founded by Sir George from the legend of Saint George and the Dragon, with the tale directly referenced by name. The dragon that George fought is depicted as a shapeshifting extradimensional demon named Dagon, worshipped by a cult called the Flame Keepers’ Circle that goes to war against the Forever Knights. Series main antagonist Vilgax takes advantage of his true form's coincidental resemblance to Dagon's true appearance to manipulate the Flame Keepers’ Circle into helping him find the heart of Dagon, which George had cut out and sealed with the Ascalon, depicted here as a sword of alien origin created by Azmuth prior to inventing the Omnitrix.

Samantha Shannon describes her 2019 novel The Priory of the Orange Tree as a "feminist retelling" of Saint George and the Dragon.Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/X0lsvafy9mI Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20190523214748/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0lsvafy9mI Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0lsvafy9mI |title=Shelfie with Samantha Shannon |publisher=YouTube |date=2019-02-26 |accessdate=2021-02-17}}{{cbignore}}

Heraldry and vexillology

=Coats of arms=

Reggio Calabria used Saint George and the dragon in its {{ill|lt=coat of arms|Stemma di Reggio Calabria|it|vertical-align=sup}} since at least 1757, derived from earlier (15th-century) iconography used on the city seal.

Saint George and the dragon has been depicted in the coat of arms of Moscow since the late 18th century,

and in the coat of arms of Georgia since 1991 (based on a coat of arms introduced in 1801 for Georgia within the Russian Empire).

File:S. Giorgio di Cappadocia e lo stemma della città di Reggio - Stemma di Reggio Calabria.png|Coat of arms of Reggio Calabria (1896)

File:Moscow COA 1781.png|Coat of arms of Moscow (1781)

File:Coat of arms of Moscow.svg|Coat of arms of Moscow (1993 design)

File:Coat of Arms of the Russian Federation.svg|Coat of arms of Russia (1993)

File:COA of Kyiv Oblast m.svg|Coat of arms of Kyiv Oblast (1999)

File:Lesser coat of arms of Georgia.svg|Coat of arms of Georgia (2004)

File:Aragonese Royal Arms with the Crest of the Chivalry of Saint George.svg from the Inventory of King Martin (c.1400)Domènech i Montaner, Lluís (1995) Ensenyes nacionals de Catalunya. Barcelona : Generalitat de Catalunya. {{ISBN|84-393-3575-X}}.]]

Provincial coats of arms

  • Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine (1999)
  • Moscow Oblast, Russia ({{ill|lt=2005|Герб Московской области|ru|vertical-align=sup}})

Municipal coats of arms

=Flags=

{{gallery|mode=packed|width=250|height=250

|File:Flag of Botsaris.svg|Standard of Greek general Markos Botsaris

|File:Ethiopian imperial standard of Haile Selassie I (reverse).svg|Imperial standard of Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia (reverse)

|File:Flag of Malta.svg|Flag of Malta

}}

=Military insignia=

See also

{{Portal|Catholicism|Christianity}}

Explanatory notes

{{notelist}}

References

Citations

{{reflist|30em|refs=

}}

Sources

  • {{cite thesis|last=Mina |first=John Louis |title= Thematic and Poetic Analysis of Russian Religious Oral Epics: Epic Duxovnye Stixi |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |year=1979 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KoFJAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Egorij%22 |page=73}}
  • {{cite book|last=Warner |first=Elizabeth |title=Russian Myths|publisher=University of Texas Press |year=2002 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_PoesCeU0iUC&pg=PA67 |isbn=978-0-2927-9158-9 |pages=67–68}}
  • {{cite book|last=MacDermott |first=Mercia |title=Bulgarian Folk Customs |publisher=Jessica Kingsley Publishers |year=1998 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gh4IE6toGJMC&pg=PA64 |pages=64–66 |isbn=978-1-8530-2485-6}}

Bibliography

{{refbegin|2}}

  • {{citation|last=Aufhauser |first=Johannes B. |title=Das Drachenwunder des Heiligen Georg: nach der meist verbreiteten griechischen Rezension |year=1911 |publisher=Leipzig, B.G. Teubner |url=https://archive.org/details/dasdrachenwunder00aufhuoft}}
  • {{citation|last=Fontenrose |first=Joseph Eddy |title=Appendix 4: Saint George and the Dragon |work=Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins |publisher=University of California Press |year=1959 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wqeVv09Y6hIC&pg=PA515 |pages=515–520|isbn=9780520040915 }}
  • Loomis, C. Grant, 1949. White Magic, An Introduction to the Folklore of Christian Legend (Cambridge: Medieval Society of America)
  • {{citation|last=Thurston |first=Herbert |title=St. George |encyclopedia=The Catholic Encyclopedia |volume=6 |place=New York |publisher=Robert Appleton Company |date=1909 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BFc_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA453 |pages=453–455}}
  • {{citation |last=Walter |first=C. |title=The Origins of the Cult of St. George |journal=Revue des études byzantines |volume=53 |year=1995 |pages=295–326 |doi=10.3406/rebyz.1995.1911 |issn=0766-5598}}.
  • {{citation |last=Walter |first=Christopher |title=The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qhKmDQAAQBAJ |publisher=Routledge |location=Abingdon |date=2003 |isbn=9781351880510 }}.
  • Whatley, E. Gordon, editor, with Anne B. Thompson and Robert K. Upchurch, 2004. St. George and the Dragon in the South English Legendary (East Midland Revision, c. 1400) Originally published in Saints' Lives in Middle English Collections ([http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/whgeodintro.htm on-line text: Introduction]).

{{refend}}

External links

{{commons category}}

{{refbegin}}

  • [https://github.com/tcorral/St.George-Legend Saint George Legend explained in Javascript] by Tomás Corral
  • [http://www.enjoyengland.com/attractions/events/calendar/april/st-george.aspx St George and the Dragon Events and Ideas – Official Website for Tourism in England]
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20070429070715/http://www.stgeorgesholiday.com/st_george.asp St George Unofficial Bank Holiday]: St. George and the Dragon, free illustrated book based on 'The Seven Champions' by Richard Johnson (1596)
  • [http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/stgeorge St George's Bake and Brew] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20121224004816/http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/stgeorge |date=2012-12-24 }}

{{refend}}

{{Saint George}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint George And The Dragon}}

Category:Christian folklore

Category:Medieval legends

Category:Christian iconography

Category:Saint George (martyr)

Category:Tiamat