23/04/2016
Today is St George`s Day. St George is the patron saint of England, Portugal, Venice, Beirut, Malta, Ethiopia, Georgia, the Palestinian terrorises, Serbia and Lithuania. English school children are taught that he was a knight who slayed a dragon, but where does the legend come from? The legend first appears in stories told by the medieval Eastern Orthodox church, which were then brought back to Europe by the Crusaders during the tenth and eleventh century. One of the stories is of a Libyan town who townspeople were being killed by a dragon. So instead they started feeding it sheep, but when the sheep had all gone, the King decided to feed the dragon the local children. They were selected by a lottery system, until the King's daughter was the local child to be fed to the dragon. St George who by chance was riding past this day, offered to kill the dragon if the townspeople converted to Christianity.
Today also marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. St George appears 18 times in Shakespeare's plays. Can you work out which of his plays are depicted by the images below?
It's no surprise that Saint George turns up a few times in Shakespeare's plays, most famously in Henry's rallying cry to his troops before the battle of Harfleur, in Henry V: "Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'"