S. George is a link between Venice and England, for we both honour him as a patron.  He is to be seen in pictures again and again in Venetian churches, but these three scenes by Carpaccio are the finest.  The Saint was a Cappadocian gentleman and the dragon ranged and terrorized the Libyan desert.  Every day the people of the city which the dragon most affected bribed him away with two sheep.  When the sheep gave out a man was substituted.  Then children and young people, to be selected by lot, and the lot in time fell on the king’s daughter.  The king in despair offered his subjects gold and silver instead, but they refused saying that it was his own law and must be obeyed.  They gave her, however (this, though from the lives of the saints, is sheer fairy tale, isn’t it?) eight days grace, in which anything might happen; but nothing happened, and so she was led out to the dragon’s lair.

As she stood there waiting to be devoured, S. George passed by.  He asked her what she was doing, and she replied by imploring him to run or the dragon would eat him too.  But S. George refused, and instead swore to rescue her and the city in the name (and here the fairy tale disappears) of Jesus Christ.  The dragon then advancing, S. George spurred his horse, charged and wounded him grievously with his spear. (On English gold coins, as we all know to our shame, he is given nothing but a short dagger which could not reach the enemy at all; Carpaccio knew better.) Most of the painters make this stroke of the saint decisive; according to them, S. George thrust at the dragon and all was over.  But the true story, as Caxton and Carpaccio knew, is, that having wounded the dragon, S. George took the maiden’s girdle and tied it round the creature’s neck, and it became “a meek beast and debonair,” and she led it into the city. (Carpaccio makes the saint himself its leader.) The people were terrified and fled, but S. George reassured them, and promised that if they would be baptised and believe in Jesus Christ he would slay the dragon once and for all.  They promised, and he smote off its head; and in the third picture we see him baptising.

I have given the charming story as The Golden Legend tells it; but one may also hold the opinion, more acceptable to the orthodox hagiologist, that the dreadful monster was merely symbolical of sin.

[Illustration:  S. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON FROM THE PAINTING BY CARPACCIO At S. Giorgio dei Schiavoni]

As for S. George himself, the most picturesque and comely of all the saints and one whom all the nations reverence, he was born in Cappadocia, in the third century, of noble Christian parents.  Becoming a soldier in Diocletian’s army he was made a tribune or colonel.  The Emperor showed him marks of especial favour, but when the imperial forces were turned against the Christians, George remonstrated and refused.  He was therefore beheaded.