The hero of these ballads, St. George of Cappadocia, is said to have suffered martyrdom during the persecution in Syria, in the year 303. In the 6th century he was a recognized saint both in the western and the eastern churches, and his reputation was limited to this character until the 13th. Reinbot von Dorn, (1231-53,) in his poem Der Heilige Georg, (Von der Hagen and Büsching's Deutsche Gedichte des Mittelalters,) and Vincent de Beauvais (died 1262) in his Speculum Historiale (XII. 131-32), content themselves with recounting his martyrdom, and appear to know nothing about his fight with the Dragon. The first known writer who attributes this exploit to St. George is Jacobus a Voragine (died 1298), in the Golden Legend. Of course it does not follow that the story originated there. It is probable that the legend of the Dragon arose at the time of the Crusades, and indeed was partly occasioned by them, though we ought not hastily to admit, what has been suggested, that it was founded upon some tradition which the Crusaders heard in Syria.
The Byzantians had long before ascribed various miracles to St. George, but it was the Normans, who, so to say, first pressed him into active military service.
It was he that commanded the heavenly host that came to the help of the Crusaders against the Turks, under the walls of Antioch, in the year 1098, on which occasion he was seen on his white horse, bearing the white banner with the red cross. He manifested himself again at the storming of Jerusalem in the following year, and a hundred years later was seen to fight in the front rank against the Moors in Spain, and for Frederic Barbarossa, in his crusade in 1190. But though he had entered into the service of the German emperor, this did not prevent his aiding the orthodox William of Holland in taking Aix-la-Chapelle from the excommunicated Emperor Frederic in 1248.—The most various races have contended for his protection. His feast was in 1222 ordered to be kept as a holiday throughout all England: from the beginning of the 14th century, or since the Mongol dominion was shaken off, he has been one of the guardian saints of Russia: in 1468, the Emperor Frederic III. founded the Austrian Order of St. George for the protection of the Empire against the Turks, and a few years later, in 1471, at the momentous battle of Brunkeberg, his name was the war-cry of both parties, Swedes and Danes.
That the subjugation of the Dragon (a symbolical mode of representing the extinction of Evil common to all times and peoples) should be attributed to St. George, would seem to be sufficiently explained by his having become the Christian Hero of the Middle Ages. A special reason may, however, be alleged for his connection with such a legend. Long before the Crusades, he was depicted by the artists of the Oriental Church as the Great Martyr, with the Dragon (Anti-Christ or the Devil) at his feet, and a crowned virgin (the Church) at his side. In like manner had Constantine
the Great had himself drawn, and many other saints are represented in the same way, as Theodore, Victor, and Margaret. This symbolic representation would naturally lead to the Crusaders making St. George the hero in an achievement which was well known in connection with other names: and it would then not be too much to assume that the Normans (who, as already said, were the first to recognize his presence in battle),—the same Normans who were properly the creators of the romantic poetry of the Middle Ages,—were also the first to connect St. George with the conquest of the Dragon.
But however we may account for St. George's being introduced into such a legend, so much is sure; that from the 14th century on, the story and the hero have been inseparable: all the legendaries and all the pictures of him exhibit him as the conqueror of the Dragon: his martyrdom is nearly lost sight of, and in ballads is entirely forgotten.—As to the place which was the scene of the fight, there are many opinions. Some have fixed it in Cappadocia, others in Lybia, others in Syria, and some European nations have assigned the adventure to a locality within their own bounds. Thus the Wallachians lay the scene at Orwoza, one of the Wendish ballads at Berlin, the Germans at Leipsic, the Dutch at Oudenarde, and—the people of the island of Funen at Svendborg!
[2] ] What follows is abridged from Grundtvig, Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, ii. 554.
Of Hector's deeds did Homer sing,
And of the sack of stately Troy,
What griefs fair Helena did bring,
Which was Sir Paris' only joy:
5 And by my pen I will recite
St. George's deeds, an English knight.
Against the Sarazens so rude
Fought he full long and many a day,
Where many gyaunts he subdu'd,
10 In honour of the Christian way;
And after many adventures past,
To Egypt land he came at last.