Courage, required.
Courage, required.
There are certain myths that stand, with slight adaptations, across time and inspire generations. St. George and the Dragon is one such story.
The 13th century tale tells of a village terrorized by a dragon with demands to appease its appetites. Initially, the village offers sheep and trinkets to satiate the serpent.
But eventually their supply is exhausted and they settle on offering a villager, selected by lottery, to serve as their annual sacrifice.
The people go along with this arrangement until the lottery selects the King’s daughter as tribute. At which point, the King stalls the sacrifice just long enough for George to show up. After hearing of the dragon that torments the town, George vows to slay the demon in its den.
George delivers on his promise, thrusting a lance labeled Ascalon (the name Churchill used for his personal plane in World War II) where its scales were weakest (giving us the images enshrined eternally in art, swipe 👉🏻 for a few of my favorites).
After claiming victory for the village, the King rewards him with sainthood.
But St. George stood for courage long before his dragon days. The 4th century source of initial reverence for him sprang from his courage and commitment to his convictions.
During the Emperor Diocletian’s Great Persecution, George—then a soldier in the Roman army—refused to bow and recant his faith.
It was a decision George paid for with his life. An act of courage on the level of dragon slaying. Perhaps, I submit, that’s why his legend took the shape it did 1,000 years later.
Perhaps refusing to compromise your convictions under power’s pressure makes you the serpent-slaying knight.
And perhaps it’s with acts of courage that we earn our seat with the divine. After all, Hercules only ascends to Mount Olympus after braving the Twelve Labors. Just as it takes confronting the dragon for George to secure his seat among the saints.
In the words of Boethius:
Brave hearts, press on!
Lo, heavenward lead
These bright examples!
From the fight
Turn not your backs in coward flight;
Earth's conflict won,
the stars your meed!