THE LEGEND OF SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON-by Lola García Romeu

LEGEND OF SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON

The legend  says that it came to ears of the saint that a small reign of a distant región had a fabulous beast that was tormenting the population so he decided to go there.

The beast was a huge dragon that dwelt on the shore of a lake near the city. this dragon not only devoured his prey but his breath was fatal. In order to calm him down and keep him at a distance, the peasants delivered him periodically a pair of animals. So ran the days, the months, until one day  he had eaten all the animals of the region, so they didn´t have any animal to deliver in sacrifice . At that time a farmer recalled that the princess, the daughter of the king, had a small lamb that had been orphaned, then the population decided to go there to get the lamb of the princess. she, with all her pain began to cry and  refused to hand it over. but the king ordered immediately to  send the lamb, to keep quiet the beast. So it went, the lamb was left as they did with all the other animals on the outskirts of the city, on the shores of the lake. At the time when the dragon was in search of its prey, he found  the little lamb, and with rejection, he killed  him in a single blow, the leave pulled into place and is removal. When the princess found out what had happened she asked her father, the king, to make a belt with the lamb skin.

The peasants and the King were terrified , so they agreed that it was time to deliver the dragon some human flesh, but that it should only be of minor girls aged fifteen. The population according to the king believed that it was the only way because he had to calm down the beast. And so they decided to first give young girls who were found sick, because they thought that if the dragon ate sick  girls, he would also get sick and die. But that didn´t occurr, so they decided to give stunted girls, until it  the day came when there were only healthy girls left.

But the day came that there was not a single girl left. The only one that remained was the princess, the daughter of the king. So the people went to the palace and told the king that he had to deliver the princess. He said no but the people told him that the dragon wasn´t going to stay silent and that he was going to attack the city and they thought that perhaps what they wanted was royal meat. And since the same king had written the edict for girls under fifteen years of age, the best thing to do was deliver the princess.

The princess from the place where she was hiding, heard all the deliberation of her father and the representatives of the people. She decided to come out ands she said that she accepted because she wanted to help her kingdom. Hearing this the king asked the people to give him eight days to be able to say goodbye to his beloved daughter, but the eighth day came, and the people went in search of the princess so she was given in sacrifice to the dragon who was more infuriated than never, because of the long time without food.

The King wept inconsolably when he saw that his daughter's departure was imminent, and the princess dressed in her finery was carried in sacrifice to the dragon, She had put her Crown and  also a belt with its small lamb skin,and she  walked firmly and resolutely in the middle cheer of the people, and her father crying. Arriving to the outskirts of the city, on the edge of the lake, she was left  alone, at that time the princess went down on her knees and directed her gaze to the top of the sky.

It was at that time the sun began to hide, the sky looked like fire, cold wind blew in the direction of the village. A few seconds later  the dust  began to draw the figure of a soldier on a horseback, pouncing to where the princess was. She could not understand that she felt paralyzed. The knight  headed towards the dragon and went into a brave fight. The dragon was trying to tangle on the legs of the horse to make it fall and leave it helpless to the knight but he couldn´t , so he decided to fix his look in the eyes of the knight because that was the way  hypnotize his victims. But St George was very strong so it didn´t work with him. He nailed slightly his spear on the dragon´s head then he asked for the princess´s belt and he put it around his head. then St. george told the princess that he had no fear, because the dragon had become meek as a lamb.

So they returned together to the village,  St. George and the princess, leading to the dragon as if it was a lamb for the meek, crawling after them. The crowd of 20,000 was present, all clamoring to see the dragon. Arriving in front of the king, the gentleman George  cut the head of the dragon and  offered it to the king. Seeing this, after listening to the stories of St. George, all the people, including their king wanted to be baptized in the name of Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit.