The Blog
City Pages Review May 2012
Posted in City Pages on May 30th, 2012.
The medieval legend of St. George and the Dragon is a classic tale of a girl, her girdle, a guy, and the gigantic lizard he leveraged to help him convert a city of heathens. The whole scenario is pretty bananas, but my guess is you just want to know more about the girdle part. Well, as with any ancient story, both veracity and version control are serious issues, but the basic narrative takes place in Silene, where George happened to be riding by this pond where a lady, who happened to be a princess, was about to be fed to the dragon that happened to live in the pond. A valiant George fortified himself with the sign of the cross, stabbed the dragon, and told the princess to throw him her girdle, as men are wont to do in a stressful situation. She obliged, and George lassoed the dragon with the girdle, which apparently rendered the dragon as pliant and docile as a baby sloth. Girdles! So many uses! Anyway, thanks to the power of this belt George was able to lead the dragon around town, striking fear in the hearts of the villagers, and proclaimed that he would only slay the dragon if they all agreed to be baptized. It proved an effective tactic, and George was eventually martyred and named the patron saint of England.
