Stories of persons and places in Europe . ver all the land. Theknights of the cross calledupon him in all their trouble,and even believed that he hadleft his throne in heaven andcome down to help them fightagainst the Turks. Richardlearned to call upon him too,and determined to carry thefame of the knightly saint backto England. There was still another sideto Saint Georges characterthat had much to do with hisreception in England. In thesame country where his famefirst arose, there had been twocities, one named after Reseph,the god of light, the other after Dagon, the god of darkness. They wer
Stories of persons and places in Europe . ver all the land. Theknights of the cross calledupon him in all their trouble,and even believed that he hadleft his throne in heaven andcome down to help them fightagainst the Turks. Richardlearned to call upon him too,and determined to carry thefame of the knightly saint backto England. There was still another sideto Saint Georges characterthat had much to do with hisreception in England. In thesame country where his famefirst arose, there had been twocities, one named after Reseph,the god of light, the other after Dagon, the god of darkness. They were rival cities in trade, and after atime the people of the city of light rose up and slew the people of the cityof darkness. As the story was told over by succeeding generations, itgrew to be a myth about Reseph, god of light, slaying Dagon, the god ofdarkness, part of whose body was like a fish. This myth spread about till it reached Egypt, where there was also a godof light, and plenty of real dragons and crocodiles for him to slay. An. SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. 118 Persons and Places in Europe. Egyptian artist represented the myth in a bas-relief,—a mounted god withhis feet on a reptiles neck thrusting his lance into the creatures spine. And so the Egyptian bas-relief became, after a while, the symbol of the ?Lyddian saint, and was pictured on the banners of the knights who wentforth to fight against the Turks in Palestine, and Richard carried the fameof the saint, his banner and his war-cry back with him to England. TheNormans were pleased with the knightly character of Saint George, andthe Saxons, who believed with nearly all the rest of the world that marshes,which were numerous in England, were the abodes of fearful dragons, werevery glad to know a saint who was a dragon-slayer. A few years after Richards return the council of Oxford ordered a feast-day to be held in his honor, and in the next century Edward III. built achapel to Saint George at Windsor Palace, and
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