But, when the children grew up, they behaved just as their parents had done, and neither improved nor repented. Weeping bitter tears over her white cheeks, the holy Mary went the third time to the assembly of the saints, and reported how disorderly and madly the people of the Troyan land were still living. She said, it was quite evident that they could not be brought to repentance, and that, therefore, she intended now to pray God to send down his lightnings and destroy the cities and villages.
But St. Elias said again, ‘Not so, my dear sister! not so! Let us give them yet a third warning.’ So the saints prayed to God for the third warning, and God granted their request.
Next morning, close by the king’s palace in the chief city of the Troyans a green lake appeared, and therein was an insatiable dragon feeding on young men and maidens. Every morning, for breakfast, the monster required a young man who had never been wedded; and every evening, for supper, he demanded a youthful and blooming maiden.
This went on for seven years, until, at length, the turn came to the only daughter of the king. Then the queen cried loudly and bitterly, and clasped her arms closely round the neck of her child. Mother and daughter wept together three days, and when the fourth day dawned, the queen fell into a light slumber by her daughter’s side. As she slept, she dreamed that a man appeared to her, and said, ‘O queen of the Troyan city! do not send your daughter this evening to the lake; but send her to-morrow, when the day dawns, and the sun shines. Tell her, when she goes to the lake, she must bathe her face, and then, turning towards the east, let her call on the name of the true God. She must, however, be careful not to mention the idol of silver. This done, she must wait patiently, ready to accept whatsoever the true God ordereth for her.’
The queen, awakening from her sleep, related at once her dream to her daughter, and impressed on her the necessity of carrying out faithfully her instructions. Weeping bitterly, the king’s daughter took leave of her mother at daybreak, begging the queen to forgive her the milk with which she had been nourished in her babyhood. Then she went down to the lake shore, bathed her face, and, turning eastwards, prayed to the true God. This done, according to her mother’s instructions, she sat down and awaited whatever might happen to her.
Suddenly there appeared a strange knight mounted on a magnificent charger. He greeted the maiden ‘in the name of God!’ and she, springing up quickly, returned the greeting courteously. Then the strange knight, seeing she had been weeping, asked what it was that troubled her, and wherefore she sat waiting there alone. In answer to these questions the maiden related the whole sad story of the dragon, and the fearful fate which seemed to await her.
When she had finished her narration, the knight dismounted, and, removing his kalpak from his head, said, ‘Now I desire to sleep a little, and I wish you to pass your hand through my hair that I may sleep more pleasantly.’ The girl tried to dissuade him from this, lest the dragon should come whilst he slept, and devour him also. She said it would be a pity for him to perish thus needlessly. However, she could not prevail on him to abandon his purpose, and he fell at once into a gentle slumber, and slept as quietly as a young lamb.
Very soon, however, the waters of the lake were agitated, and the terrible dragon appeared coming towards them. Then the unknown knight sprang up quickly into his saddle, and, stretching out his arms, lifted the maiden up and placed her behind him on his charger. This done, with one stroke of his lance, he pinned the dragon down to the bottom of the lake, where it remained bleeding, but not dead. Then the knight took the girl back to the palace of the king, her father, and the queen, who had been watching anxiously everything that passed, met him at the gate and delivered up to him the keys of the city.
The knight, who was no other than St. George, now walked through the streets of the Troyan city, and, having gathered the people around him, spoke to them thus, ‘Listen to me, my children! Pray no more to the idol of silver, pray only to the one true God! And you, young people, reverence your elders. All of you remember that near relatives cannot be permitted to intermarry. Keep holy the Sabbath, as well as all the other holy days and saint days.’ Having thus admonished them, the holy knight ordered that the temple should be opened, and when his commands had been obeyed, he took out of it the silver idol, and melted it into a variety of ornaments. In the place of the silver idol he placed a holy picture, and then consecrated the temple, and it became a church. When this was done, he turned again to the people, and said, ‘If you will promise to do as I have told you, I will kill the dragon in the lake; but if you refuse to do what I have asked of you I will let him loose again, and I think he will soon make an end of you.’
Then all the people bowed themselves to the earth before the holy knight, and shouted aloud, ‘O good and unknown knight! our brother in God! Deliver us from the dragon in the lake, and we will do and live just as you have counselled us!’ Whereupon they received the true faith. When they had so done, St. George returned to the lake, and made the sign of the cross over it with a stick, and at that very moment both the lake and dragon disappeared as if they had never been.