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70-404: The narrative has pre-Christian origins ( Jason and Medea , Perseus and Andromeda , Typhon , etc.), and is recorded in various saints' lives prior to its attribution to Saint George specifically. It was particularly attributed to Saint Theodore Tiro in the 9th and 10th centuries, and was first transferred to Saint George in the 11th century. The oldest known record of Saint George slaying a dragon

140-676: A kylix in the Vatican collections. In the kylix painted by Douris, c.  480 –470, Jason is being disgorged from the mouth of the dragon, a detail that does not fit easily into the literary sources; behind the dragon, the fleece hangs from an apple tree. Jason's helper in the Athenian vase-paintings is not Medea — who had a history in Athens as the opponent of Theseus —but Athena . A long time ago, fleeces were considered very important. Several euhemeristic attempts to interpret

210-420: A nymph and the granddaughter of Helios , the sun-god. According to Hyginus , Poseidon carried Theophane to an island where he made her into a ewe so that he could have his way with her among the flocks. There Theophane's other suitors could not distinguish the ram-god and his consort. Nephele's children escaped on the yellow ram over the sea, but Helle fell off and drowned in the strait now named after her,

280-700: A 17th-century drawing, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. The "Christianisation" of the Thracian horseman iconography can be traced to the Cappadocian cave churches of Göreme , where frescoes of the 10th century show military saints on horseback confronting serpents with one, two or three heads. One of the earliest examples is from the church known as Mavrucan 3 ( Güzelöz, Yeşilhisar  [ tr ] ), generally dated to

350-489: A chapter entitled " The Reluctant Dragon ", in which an elderly Saint George and a benign dragon stage a mock battle to satisfy the townsfolk and get the dragon introduced into society. Later made into a film by Walt Disney Productions , and set to music by John Rutter as a children's operetta . In 1935 Stanley Holloway recorded a humorous retelling of the tale as St. George and the Dragon written by Weston and Lee. In

420-586: A coat of arms introduced in 1801 for Georgia within the Russian Empire ). Golden Fleece In Greek mythology , the Golden Fleece ( Ancient Greek : Χρυσόμαλλον δέρας , romanized :  Khrysómallon déras , lit.   'Golden-haired pelt') is the fleece of the golden -woolled, winged ram , Chrysomallos , that rescued Phrixus and brought him to Colchis , where Phrixus then sacrificed it to Zeus . Phrixus gave

490-570: A cross- halo , in the Archbishop's Chapel, Ravenna . One arm holds open a book showing the text of John 14.6: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life", while the other holds the bottom of a cross resting across Christ's shoulder. Here the subject is thought to refer to the contemporary struggle of the Church against the Arian heresy , which denied the divine nature of Christ; the image asserts

560-426: A different depiction, even rarer than Christ treading on the beasts , which has been called "Christ as Judge recognised by the beasts in the desert". This hitherto unrecognised subject was first proposed by Fritz Saxl , followed by Meyer Schapiro . The crucial difference is that in this interpretation the animals do not represent the devil, but actual wildlife encountered by Jesus, specifically in his forty days in

630-459: A dragon near Euchaita in a legend not younger than the late 9th century. Early depictions of a horseman killing a dragon are unlikely to represent Saint George, who in the 10th century was depicted as killing a human figure, not a dragon. The earliest image of St Theodore as a horseman (named in Latin) is from Vinica, North Macedonia and, if genuine, dates to the 6th or 7th century. Here, Theodore

700-661: A feature of Anglo-Saxon art , which Meyer Schapiro attributes to "the primitive taste of the Anglo-Saxon tribes for imagery of heroic combats with wild beasts and monsters, as in Beowulf and the pagan legends." The motif appears in several other works from the Carolingian period onwards, which include: An alternative view of the iconography of the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses sees the panels with Christ as showing

770-589: A knight on horseback slaying the dragon first appears in western art in the second half of the 13th century. The tradition of the saint's arms being shown as the red-on-white Saint George's Cross develops in the 14th century. Paintings Sculptures Mosaic Engravings Prints Edmund Spenser expands on the Saint George and the Dragon story in Book I of the Fairy Queen , initially referring to

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840-521: A recurring antagonist faction in the Ben 10 are revealed in the third series Ben 10: Ultimate Alien to have been founded by Sir George from the legend of Saint George and the Dragon, with the tale directly referenced by name. The dragon that George fought is depicted as a shapeshifting extradimensional demon named Dagon, worshipped by a cult called the Flame Keepers’ Circle that goes to war against

910-579: A similar beast is Christ. A variant depiction may also relate to a different text, Psalm 74 :13:- "Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters" (KJV). This was related by commentators to baptism , and on the wooden doors of Sankt Maria im Kapitol in Cologne (1049), may be referred to in the scene of the Baptism of Christ , where Christ stands on some sort of sea-monster . Another possibility, following

980-530: A snake with a head at each end, a composite figure of the beasts. The book which the miniature illustrates is Cassiodorus's Commentary on the Psalms , which explains that Psalm 90:13 refers to Christ, and elsewhere that David, who is portrayed in the only two surviving miniatures, is a type of Christ. In later Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, such as the Tiberius C. VI Psalter ( British Library ), the figure standing on

1050-462: A source of the 5th or 6th century, names "governor Dadianus", the persecutor of Saint George as "the dragon of the abyss", a greek myth with similar elements of the legend is the battle between Bellerophon and the Chimera . Budge makes explicit the parallel to pre-Christian myth: I doubt much of the whole story of Saint George is anything more than one of the many versions of the old-world story of

1120-536: Is a direct continuation of the Roman-era " Thracian horseman " type iconography. The iconography of the dragon appears to grow out of the serpent entwining the "tree of life" on one hand, and with the draco standard used by late Roman cavalry on the other. Horsemen spearing serpents and boars are widely represented in Roman-era stelae commemorating cavalry soldiers. A carving from Krupac , Serbia, depicts Apollo and Asclepius as Thracian horsemen, shown besides

1190-577: Is found in a Georgian text of the 11th century. The legend and iconography spread rapidly through the Byzantine cultural sphere in the 12th century. It reached Western Christian tradition still in the 12th century, via the crusades . The knights of the First Crusade believed that Saint George, along with his fellow soldier-saints Demetrius , Maurice , Theodore and Mercurius , had fought alongside them at Antioch and Jerusalem. The legend

1260-497: Is not slaying a dragon, but holding a draco standard . One of the Vinica icons also has the oldest representation of Saint George with a dragon: George stands besides a cynocephalous Saint Christopher , both saints treading on snakes with human heads, and aiming at their heads with spears. Maguire (1996) has connected the shift from unnamed equestrian heroes used in household magic to the more regulated iconography of named saints to

1330-570: Is the main source of the story of Saint George and the Dragon as received in Western Europe, and is therefore relevant for Saint George as patron saint of England . The princess remains unnamed in the Golden Legend version, and the name "Sabra" is supplied by Elizabethan era writer Richard Johnson in his Seven Champions of Christendom (1596). In the work, she is recast as a princess of Egypt. This work takes great liberties with

1400-582: The Archangel Michael fighting Satan. In all the depictions mentioned above and below, up to the Errondo relief, Christ is beardless. Later still the beasts more often appear beneath the feet of a seated Christ in Majesty , becoming an occasional feature of this subject. Alternatively the beasts are replaced by a solitary snake trodden on by Christ. The more "militant" depictions are especially

1470-579: The Hellespont . The ram spoke to Phrixus, encouraging him, and took the boy safely to Colchis (modern-day south-east coastal region of the Black Sea), on the easternmost shore of the Euxine (Black) Sea . There the ram was sacrificed to gods. In essence, this act returned the ram to the god Poseidon, and the ram became the constellation Aries . Phrixus settled in the house of Aeëtes , son of Helios

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1540-456: The Nile ). Silene was being plagued by a venom-spewing dragon dwelling in a nearby pond, poisoning the countryside. To prevent it from affecting the city itself, the people offered it two sheep daily, then a man and a sheep, and finally their children and youths, chosen by lottery. One time the lot fell on the king's daughter. The king offered all his gold and silver to have his daughter spared, but

1610-565: The Protestant church as the one true faith, was told in altered fashion in Edmund Spenser 's The Faerie Queene . The saint is depicted in the style of a Roman cavalryman in the tradition of the " Thracian Heros ". There are two main iconographic types, the "concise" form showing only George and the dragon, and the "detailed" form also including the princess and the city walls or towers of Lacia (Lasia) with spectators witnessing

1680-515: The Yılanlı Kilise  [ tr ] ("Snake Church") that depicts the two saints Theodore and George attacking a dragon has been tentatively dated to the 10th century, or alternatively even to the mid-9th. A similar example, but showing three equestrian saints, Demetrius, Theodore and George, is from the "Zoodochos Pigi" chapel in central Macedonia in Greece, in the prefecture of Kilkis , near

1750-477: The military saint George as treading on two snakes with human heads, both saints aiming lances at the heads of the snakes. This is the earliest known form of the dragon-slaying motif which by the 10th or 11th century was strongly associated with the military saints Theodore and George. A well-known figure of David in the Durham Cassiodorus (8th century) is shown holding a spear and standing on

1820-463: The purple dye murex snail and related species was highly prized in ancient times. Clothing made of cloth dyed with Tyrian purple was a mark of great wealth and high station (hence the phrase "royal purple"). The association of gold with purple is natural and occurs frequently in literature. The following are the chief among the various interpretations of the fleece, with notes on sources and major critical discussions: Christ treading on

1890-486: The "militant" version, probably after the Constantinian conversion, but surviving in a small trickle of examples, especially those produced in contexts of monastic asceticism , showing "Christ as the ideal monk". By the 8th century, the motif of "treading" on devilish beasts was transferred to saints . One of the terracotta icons found near Vinica, North Macedonia shows a cynocephalous Saint Christopher and

1960-442: The "wilderness" or desert in between his Baptism and Temptation. Schapiro assembled a good deal of textual material showing tropes of wild beasts submitting to Christ and other Christian figures, especially in the context of the early monasticism of the desert, where the attitude of the challenging local fauna was a live issue. The legend of Saint Jerome and the lion is an enduring example, and later Saint Francis of Assisi renewed

2030-482: The 10th century, which portrays two "sacred riders" confronting two serpents twined around a tree, in a striking parallel to the Dioskuroi stela, except that the riders are now attacking the snake in the "tree of life" instead of a boar. In this example, at least, there appear to be two snakes with separate heads, but other examples of 10th-century Cappadocia show polycephalous snakes. A poorly preserved wall-painting at

2100-512: The 1950s, Stan Freberg and Daws Butler wrote and performed St. George and the Dragon-Net (a spoof of the tale and of Dragnet ) for Freberg's radio show. The story's recording became the first comedy album to sell over a million copies. Margaret Hodges retold the legend in a 1984 children's book ( Saint George and the Dragon ) with Caldecott Medal -winning illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman . The Forever Knights that serve as

2170-538: The Coats of Arms of City of Kutaisi , the ancient capital city of Colchis. Athamas the founder of Thessaly, but also king of the city of Orchomenus in Boeotia (a region of southeastern Greece ), took the goddess Nephele as his first wife. They had two children, the boy Phrixus (whose name means "curly", as in the texture of the ram's fleece) and the girl Helle . Later Athamas became enamored of and married Ino ,

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2240-603: The Forever Knights. Series main antagonist Vilgax takes advantage of his true form’s coincidental resemblance to Dagon’s true appearance to manipulate the Flame Keepers’ Circle into helping him find the heart of Dagon, which George had cut out and sealed with the Ascalon, depicted here as a sword of alien origin created by Azmuth prior to inventing the Omnitrix. Samantha Shannon describes her 2019 novel The Priory of

2310-527: The Golden Fleece "realistically" as reflecting some physical cultural object or alleged historical practice have been made. For example, in the 20th century, some scholars suggested that the story of the Golden Fleece signified the bringing of sheep husbandry to Greece from the east; in other readings, scholars theorized it referred to golden grain, or to the Sun. A more widespread interpretation relates

2380-467: The Orange Tree as a "feminist retelling" of Saint George and the Dragon. Reggio Calabria used Saint George and the dragon in its coat of arms since at least 1757, derived from earlier (15th-century) iconography used on the city seal. Saint George and the dragon has been depicted in the coat of arms of Moscow since the late 18th century, and in the coat of arms of Georgia since 1991 (based on

2450-556: The Ravenna mosaic and the Carolingian book-covers are not claimed to show it. Other Anglo-Saxon pieces might represent it, for example, according to Leslie Webster a brooch in Ludlow Museum from the 2nd quarter of the 7th century with two beast heads at the foot of a cross "must also represent Creation's adoration of the risen Christ" Schapiro saw the "peaceful" image as the original version, its composition later turned into

2520-525: The back of a bull-like dragon, while the Virgin's throne sits on a lion; both animals are lying in profile, facing out of the scenes, and one of Mary's feet rests on the hind-quarters of each beast. Following the imagery of chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation , Bernard of Clairvaux had called Mary the "conqueror of dragons", and she was long to be shown crushing a snake underfoot, also a reference to her title as

2590-555: The beasts Christ treading on the beasts is a subject found in Late Antique and Early Medieval art , though it is never common. It is a variant of the "Christ in Triumph" subject of the resurrected Christ , and shows a standing Christ with his feet on animals, often holding a cross-staff which may have a spear-head at the bottom of its shaft, or a staff or spear with a cross-motif on a pennon . Some art historians argue that

2660-514: The church of St George in Staraya Ladoga , dated c.  1167 . In Russian tradition, the icon is known as Чудо Георгия о змие ; i.e., "the miracle of George and the dragon". The saint is mostly shown on a white horse, facing right, but sometimes also on a black horse, or facing left. The princess is usually not included. Another motif shows George on horseback with the youth of Mytilene sitting behind him. The motif of Saint George as

2730-625: The closer regulation of sacred imagery following the iconoclasm of the 730s. In the West, a Carolingian-era depiction of a Roman horseman trampling and piercing a dragon between two soldier saints with lances and shields was put on the foot of a crux gemmata , formerly in the Treasury of the Basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht (lost since the 18th c.). The representation survives in

2800-814: The commentary of Eusebius, is that the Baptism provoked the devilish beasts to attack Christ, an episode often considered to relate to the Temptation of Christ , which immediately follows the Baptism in the Synoptic Gospels . In a Romanesque tympanum of the Adoration of the Magi , at Neuilly-en-Donjon of c. 1130, Christ does not appear, but the Three Magi pick their way to the Virgin and Child along

2870-413: The conflict between Light and Darkness, or Ra and Apepi , and Marduk and Tiamat , woven upon a few slender threads of historical fact. Tiamat, the scaly, winged, foul dragon, and Apepi the powerful enemy of the glorious Sungod, were both destroyed and made to perish in the fire which he sent against them and their fiends: and Dadianus, also called the 'dragon', with his friends the sixty-nine governors,

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2940-424: The daughter of Cadmus . When Nephele left in anger, drought came upon the land. Ino was jealous of her stepchildren and plotted their deaths; in some versions, she persuaded Athamas that sacrificing Phrixus was the only way to end the drought. Nephele, or her spirit, appeared to the children with a winged ram whose fleece was of gold . The ram had been sired by Poseidon in his primitive ram-form upon Theophane ,

3010-464: The devil, as explained by Cassiodorus and Bede in their commentaries on Psalm 91. The verse was part of the daily monastic service of compline , and also sung in the Roman liturgy for Good Friday , the day of Christ's Crucifixion . The earliest appearance of the subject in a major work is a 6th-century mosaic of Christ, dressed as a general or emperor in military uniform, clean-shaven and with

3080-406: The dragon's neck. Wherever she walked, the dragon followed the girl like a "meek beast" on a leash . The princess and Saint George led the dragon back to the city of Silene, where it terrified the population. Saint George offered to kill the dragon if they consented to become Christians and be baptized. Fifteen thousand men including the king of Silene converted to Christianity . George then killed

3150-538: The dragon, beheading it with his sword, and the body was carted out of the city on four ox-carts. The king built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint George on the site where the dragon died and a spring flowed from its altar with water that cured all disease. Only the Latin version involves the saint striking the dragon with the spear, before killing it with the sword. The Golden Legend narrative

3220-539: The early 11th century. The oldest certain images of Saint George combatting the serpent are still found in Cappadocia . In the well-known version from Jacobus de Voragine 's Legenda aurea ( The Golden Legend , 1260s), the narrative episode of Saint George and the Dragon took place somewhere he called "Silene" in what in medieval times was referred to as " Libya " (basically anywhere in North Africa, west of

3290-465: The feat of George's dragon slaying. Titled "St. George and the Dragon" , the ballad considers the importance of Saint George in relation to other heroes of epic and Romance, ultimately concluding that all other heroes and figures of epic or romance pale in comparison to the feats of George. The Banner of St George by Edward Elgar is a ballad for chorus and orchestra, words by Shapcott Wensley (1879). The 1898 Dream Days by Kenneth Grahame includes

3360-521: The fleece to King Aeëtes who kept it in a sacred grove, whence Jason and the Argonauts stole it with the help of Medea , Aeëtes' daughter. The fleece is a symbol of authority and kingship. In the historical account, the hero Jason and his crew of Argonauts set out on a quest for the fleece by order of King Pelias in order to place Jason rightfully on the throne of Iolcus in Thessaly . Through

3430-399: The gold was shaken or combed out. Alternatively, the fleeces would be used on washing tables in alluvial mining of gold or on washing tables at deep gold mines . Judging by the very early gold objects from a range of cultures, washing for gold is a very old human activity. Strabo describes the way in which gold could be washed: It is said that in their country gold is carried down by

3500-483: The help of Medea , they acquire the Golden Fleece. The story is of great antiquity and was current in the time of Homer (eighth century BC). It survives in various forms, among which the details vary. Nowadays, the heraldic variations of the Golden Fleece are featured frequently in Georgia , especially for Coats of Arms and Flags associated with Western Georgian (Historical Colchis) municipalities and cities, including

3570-665: The hero as the Redcross Knight . William Shakespeare refers to Saint George and the Dragon in Richard III ( Advance our standards, set upon our foes Our ancient world of courage fair St. George Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons act V, sc. 3), Henry V ( The game's afoot: follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' act III, sc. 1), and also in King Lear (act I). A 17th-century broadside ballad paid homage to

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3640-469: The image on the Ruthwell Cross, for which no direct source is known, reads: "IHS XPS iudex aequitatis; bestiae et dracones cognoverunt in deserto salvatorem mundi" – "Jesus Christ: the judge of righteousness: the beasts and dragons recognised in the desert the saviour of the world". The new interpretation would only apply to the two Anglo-Saxon crosses among the examples mentioned here; works such as

3710-406: The late 5th century. Iconography of the horseman with spear overcoming evil becomes current in the early medieval period. Iconographic representations of St Theodore as dragon-slayer are dated to as early as the 7th century, certainly by the early 10th century (the oldest certain depiction of Theodore killing a dragon is at Aghtamar , dated c.  920 ). Theodore is reported as having destroyed

3780-462: The lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet". This was interpreted as a reference to Christ defeating and triumphing over Satan . Sometimes two beasts are shown, usually the lion and snake or dragon, and sometimes four, which are normally the lion, dragon, asp (snake) and basilisk (which was depicted with varying characteristics) of the Vulgate. All represented

3850-613: The material, and makes Saint George marry Sabra and have English children, one of whom becomes Guy of Warwick . Alternative names given to the princess in Italian sources still of the 13th century are Cleolinda and Aia . Johnson also supplied the name of Saint George's sword: "Ascalon". The story of Saint George, as the Red Cross Knight and the patron saint of England, slaying the dragon, which represents sin , and Princess Una as George's true love and an allegory representing

3920-542: The miracle. The "concise" type originates in Cappadocia, in the 10th to 11th century (transferred from the same iconography associated with Saint Theodore of Tiro in the 9th to 10th century). The earliest certain example of the "detailed" form may be a fresco from Pavnisi (dated c. 1160), although the examples from Adishi , Bochorma and Ikvi may be slightly earlier. The oldest example in Russia found on walls of

3990-690: The modern village of Kolchida, dated to the 9th or 10th century. A 12th-century depiction of the mounted dragon-slayer, presumably depicting Theodore, not George, is found in four muqarna panels in the nave of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo . The dragon motif was transferred to the George legend from that of his fellow soldier saint , Saint Theodore Tiro . The transfer of the dragon iconography from Theodore, or Theodore and George as "Dioskuroi" to George on his own, first becomes tangible in

4060-415: The mountain torrents, and that the barbarians obtain it by means of perforated troughs and fleecy skins, and that this is the origin of the myth of the golden fleece—unless they call them Iberians , by the same name as the western Iberians , from the gold mines in both countries. Another interpretation is based on the references in some versions to purple or purple-dyed cloth. The purple dye extracted from

4130-471: The myth of the fleece to a method of washing gold from streams, which was well attested (but only from c.  5th century BC ) in the region of Georgia to the east of the Black Sea. Sheep fleeces, sometimes stretched over a wooden frame, would be submerged in the stream, and gold flecks borne down from upstream placer deposits would collect in them. The fleeces would be hung in trees to dry before

4200-416: The orthodox doctrine. A lion and snake are shown. The first depictions show Christ standing frontally, apparently at rest, standing on defeated beasts. From the late Carolingian period , the cross starts to end in a spear-head, which Christ may be shown driving down into a beast (often into the mouth of the serpent) in an energetic pose, using a compositional type more often (and earlier) found in images of

4270-565: The people refused. The daughter was sent out to the lake, dressed as a bride, to be fed to the dragon. Saint George arrived at the spot. The princess tried to send him away, but he vowed to remain. The dragon emerged from the pond while they were conversing. Saint George made the Sign of the Cross and charged it on horseback, seriously wounding it with his lance. He then called to the princess to throw him her girdle ( zona ), and he put it around

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4340-450: The quest for the Golden Fleece in his Fourth Pythian Ode (written in 462 BC), though the fleece is not in the foreground. When Aeëtes challenges Jason to yoke the fire-breathing bulls, the fleece is the prize: "Let the King do this, the captain of the ship! Let him do this, I say, and have for his own the immortal coverlet, the fleece, glowing with matted skeins of gold". In later versions of

4410-508: The serpent entwined around the tree. Another stele shows the Dioscuri as Thracian horsemen on either side of the serpent-entwined tree, killing a boar with their spears. The development of the hagiographical narrative of the dragon-fight parallels the development of iconography. It draws from pre-Christian dragon myths. The Coptic version of the Saint George legend, edited by E. A. Wallis Budge in 1888, and estimated by Budge to be based on

4480-421: The story, the ram is said to have been the offspring of the sea god Poseidon and Themisto (less often, Nephele or Theophane ). The classic telling is the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes , composed in the mid-third century BC Alexandria , recasting early sources that have not survived. Another, much less-known Argonautica, using the same body of myth, was composed in Latin by Valerius Flaccus during

4550-446: The subject exists in an even rarer pacific form as "Christ recognised by the beasts". The iconography derives from Biblical texts, in particular Psalm 91 (90):13: "super aspidem et basiliscum calcabis conculcabis leonem et draconem " in the Latin Vulgate , literally "The asp and the basilisk you will trample under foot/you will tread on the lion and the dragon", translated in the King James Version as: Thou shalt tread upon

4620-445: The sun god. He hung the Golden Fleece preserved from the ram on an oak in a grove sacred to Ares , the god of war and one of the Twelve Olympians . The fleece was guarded by a never-sleeping dragon with teeth that could become soldiers when planted in the ground. The dragon was at the foot of the tree on which the fleece was placed. In some versions of the story, Jason attempts to put the guard serpent to sleep. Pindar employed

4690-509: The theme. This interpretation has met with considerable acceptance, though the matter cannot be regarded as settled. A small number of other examples of the new subject have been advanced, most from before about 1200, though the clearest is in a 14th-century Catalan full-page miniature ( BnF , Ms. Lat. 8846) which shows a Temptation of Christ followed by a scene which seems unmistakably to show lions, bears and deer sitting peacefully in pairs as they are blessed by Christ. The inscription round

4760-426: The time of Vespasian . Where the written sources fail, through accidents of history, sometimes the continuity of a mythic tradition can be found among the vase-painters. The story of the Golden Fleece appeared to have little resonance for Athenians of the Classic age, for only two representations of it on Attic-painted wares of the fifth century have been identified: a krater at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and

4830-399: Was also destroyed by fire called down from heaven by the prayer of Saint George. In anticipation of the Saint George iconography, first noted in the 1870s, a Coptic stone fenestrella shows a mounted hawk-headed figure fighting a crocodile, interpreted by the Louvre as Horus killing a metamorphosed Setekh . Depictions of "Christ militant" trampling a serpent is found in Christian art of

4900-566: Was popularised in Western tradition in the 13th century based on its Latin versions in the Speculum Historiale and the Golden Legend . At first limited to the courtly setting of chivalric romance , the legend was popularised in the 13th century and became a favourite literary and pictorial subject in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance , and it has become an integral part of the Christian traditions relating to Saint George in both Eastern and Western tradition. The iconography of military saints Theodore , George and Demetrius as horsemen

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