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intriguing example of a legendary figure is Christianity’s St. George, famed as the slayer of dragons and best known as the patron saint of Britain (and Portugal). Like Arthur’s, George’s origins pose a tricky question and show how myths and legends sometimes merge. Based upon an ancient story from the Near East, the legend of George was transformed into a Christian allegory, and he was later sainted by the Roman Catholic Church. The source of the St. George story has been traced to Palestine, where European Crusaders probably first learned of it during the period of the Crusades in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. During the First Crusade, a vision of St. George supposedly led the Christians into battle at Antioch, against the Saracens. During the Third Crusade, King Richard I placed himself and his army under the protection of George, who came to be seen as the patron of soldiers.
    Little is known about the Christian St. George’s actual life. He probably came from Lydda, in what is now Israel. According to religious tradition, George became a soldier in the Roman army and rose to high rank. But after he converted to Christianity, he was arrested and executed, possibly during the persecution of the Christians by the Roman emperor Diocletian around 303 CE. Before his martyrdom, George supposedly helped convert thousands of new Christians after slaying a dragon that had terrorized the countryside. This dragon had been appeased with the regular sacrifice of two sheep, but when sheep grew scarce, the dragon demanded a human victim, chosen by lot. When the king’s daughter was selected as the victim, George promised to kill the dragon if the people agreed to be baptized.
    But the stories of George slaying the dragon are much older than the Christian era. In one earlier version, set in Libya, in North Africa, George came to the aid of a group of local people who were obliged to sacrifice a virgin each day by feeding her to a dragon. George slew the dragon and rescued the maiden, who was chained to a rock. According to this local legend, George also had the power to fertilize barren women, who, by visiting one of his shrines in northern Syria, were said to be magically impregnated by him. While it is possible that someone resembling St. George might have once lived, he belongs to the misty era of early Christianity and even earlier pagan eras, unlike Arthur, whose living, breathing inspiration probably existed in Roman Britain. Shrouded in stories that mixed magic and Christianity, dragons and Roman persecution, George was adopted as patron of the Order of the Garter by King Edward III (1327–1377) and he was invoked as England’s patron by Henry V at the famous Battle of Agincourt in 1415. (St. George is not the only Christian saint drawn from older “pagan” sources. Another example is St. Brigid, one of Ireland’s patron saints, who is very much like an older Celtic goddess also named Brigid. See chapter 5.)
    George’s evolving story is a perfect example of how myths are sometimes shared and become layered with meaning as they are adopted and adapted over the course of time. The story of a dragon slayer is one of the most common themes in ancient myths, and there are connections between the stories of St. George and of the Greek hero Perseus, and of even older dragon slayers in both Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths. The dragon, in fact, is one of the most universal archetypes, often related to evil and chaos, and images of these creatures have been found in Egyptian tombs, on the Ishtar gate in Babylon, on Chinese scrolls, on Aztec temples, and even in Inuit bone carvings.
    Another mythical dragon slayer was the Canaanite god Baal. In one myth, Baal slays the dragon Lotan (whose named was changed to Leviathan in the Hebrew Bible), the symbol of chaos. For this act, Baal was rewarded with a beautiful palace built by the gods in his honor. Readers of the Bible are familiar with Baal in another context. He