If one searches the old texts for the words that were recited on these oe casions, it becomes clear that George has been turned into the champion of Christianity fighting the incarnation of Anti-Christ in a "Heathen country where no Christian is to be found." So the proper sequel is that the rescued maiden "Therefore became a Cath vith her all the Kingdom.
But we need not go very deeply into the ancient lore that surrounds the legends of St. George to find that the Christian knight had a pagan ancestr; in the gods and demons of fertility whom people worshipped or tried to pacify that their harvest might be fruitful. The fact that the Beesel festivals take place every seven years at the time of the harvest fair, and that in the old town of Furth in retinue of distressed damsels. Strangely enough the Dragon, "El Doudou" in the local patois, is taken to the place of his execution by a little girl who leads the subdued monster by a dainty ribbon. In ancient days a banner was held aloft over them depicting the combat and bearing this "Attaques Gilles clu Chin lo dragon furieux, "Et tu seras de lui par moi victorieux,"
In the procession, by a strange mixture of Christian and pagan rites, is included the heavy "Golden Coach, drawn by six hefty dray-horses, which carries the shrine of Saint Waudru. When this has been returned to the Cathedral the Te Deum, intoned by the clergy, is followed by the popular song of Mons, called "Lo Chant clu Doudou," while in front of the Town Hall St. George enacts his great combat with the "Lumgon." His hard-won victory is celebrated by the citizens' bursting forth in the local Walloon patois of their great "Chant de Gloire de la Cité Montoise."
Space does not permit our following the attempts of Christianity to turn the jarchieic, dragonrslayer into a Christian champion, the contemporary of Constantine the Great and St.
Gregory, although the first mention of him as such is to be found in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus of Boragine, bishop of Genoa, that was written in 1298, Could we pursue our enquiries we should find that our legend of St. George presents the Christian version of the earlier Theseus, Perseus and Midas myths, and that the first attempts at merging these are found in the Greek Orthodox Church. History bears this out, for as early as the sixth century AD. the temple of Theseus in Athens, theretofore concescrated to the Attic dragonslayer, had already been turned into one honouring St. George, the Champion Saint, Elsewhere too we find early prototypes of the Christianized St. George, such as the Hindu Indra, or the Germanic Siegfried, or the Greek Jason. slayers one and all of the snakelike, venomous Dragon which we find in to be killed by heroes or gods, Zeus or Apollo, by Hercules or Theseus, by Diederich of Bern or by the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. Nor should we forget the many dragon legends current in Asia Minor which the Crusaders brought back to their native lands, to Provence. to Henault and Lorraine, where they soon found
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.