Georgios

Fr dear Fr: Anything to add to the paucity of knowledge about St George?

Like the poem by the Anglo-French poet, one is reminded of those lines:

Glendalough:

Leaning on one another, you and I,

Like the stones that covered the dead Peter;

Always at some tangent or other,

Till the crowds have filed by.

(Glendalough at the old church and chapel of St Kevin, 1997)

So this poem is a bit like the stories surrounding St George and the Dragon, good press for the hoi poloi, but when the crowds have filed by, best filled in with some solid history and some scientific hagiography. Obviously the story of St George and the Dragon is a symbolic story to describe his combat with the dark side represented by the dragon of roman paganism, and the maid is the sweet fair headed Mary of Christianity. All a mystery until one realises the symbolism behind it all. George was probably a Roman auxiliary that suffered martrydom for his faith within a pagan legion, but is the patron saint of arms manufacturers, knights, horses, soldiers, boy scouts, halbardiers as per the Swiss, and husbands too, all in.