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72 ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.
tine 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 Or-woza, 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! |
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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 : |
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