The story generally begins with:

After growing up in Cappadocia (eastern Turkey) and becoming a soldier in the Roman army, George was converted to Christianity. He started traveling across the land spreading the word of God. He became one of the seven great champions of the Christian world.

Upon arriving in Silene in Libya he came across a princess bound to a stake awaiting the arrival of the most feared creature in the land, the dragon. The dragon, a huge, winged, tailed, olive-green scaled beast, had emerged from the swamps near Silene many months before. It was a huge monster, with bat-like wings, menacing claws, and from its snout came flame and smoke. It had attacked the land with its poisonous breath, a poison so strong it killed everything it enveloped . Trying to stop the dragon the farmers in the area started feeding it two sheep a day. This kept the dragon at bay until they had run out of sheep. To stop the dragon destroying the rest of the land, the King of Silene had decreed to sacrifice one child a day to the dragon, in the hopes that someone or something would help his country defeat this almighty beast. It was the morning on which the king had been forced to sacrifice his own child, the princess Sabra, when George arrived.

George goes down to the lake with the princess.

Version 1:
The dragon was the corporeal manifestation of evil and embodies everything that George pledged to confront and conquer, and George prepared for battle. During the confrontation George became hypnotized by the dragon's eyes which glowed and dazzled him. George, confused by those eyes, drew back his lance and plunged it into the centre of those unblinking orbs. The terrible scream that came from the dragon told George that the battle was over and that he was victorious.
After beheading the dragon, he bid farewell to the people of Silene and rode away, shortly to become a Christian martyr. It was many centuries later, during the crusades, that he was adopted as the patron saint of England.

Version 2:
This version puts the dragon into the category of misguided, but good intentions.
The dragon is a general nuisance to the town, although he does not realize it and he had only decided to stay since the townspeople were being so nice to him.
The dragon only liked humans because there was no wool to get stuck in his teeth and when the princess is left for the dragon, St. George comes by, and shouts ‘Silly Dragon! Don’t you know it’s wrong to eat people!’ Then St. George and the princess lead the dragon back to the town, and the dragon is converted to Christianity.

Version 3:
As the dragon rises out to eat the princess, St. George attaches its head to the princess's girdle, allowing her to lead the dragon back to the village. Once there, the townspeople gather and exact their revenge on the beast.

Version 4:
St. George battled the monster, and wounded him so gravely that the princess was able to put her sash through its head and lead him back to the village. There, St. George took his magic sword, Ascalon, and killed it with a single blow. The villagers saw St. George's faith, and were so won over by his valor that they asked and were baptized right there.

Version 5:
The knight attacks the dragon with his lance and then proceeds to tied it up with the damsel's corset (or chastity belt - which brings up the question why was she undressing on the battlefield?). He then slices off its head after the town agrees to be baptized.

Version 6: (With Count Mansfield)
This version takes place in Germany when a count slew the beast that was to eat his daughter. The Count was made a saint and a statue was put up to commemorate the event - although they may have changed the name to St. George.

Version 7:
In Edmund Spenser's (c1522-1599) The Faerie Queen, the Red Cross Knight is St. George and is sent by the Fairy Queen (Queen Elizabeth) to free the daughter (Truth) from the dragon. The fight lasts 3 days.

Version 8:
The sacrificial virgin is in the crossroads crying when George happens by. George, instead of turning to violence, lays down his arms and kneels to pray. The dragon kneels, too, and submits to George without harming or even touching him or the girl.

This version is most likely allegorical.

• St. George preached to the Huns during the 5th century, but they killed him by tying him to a horse and sending it running.
• Chronicled by Faust Busand
• Hun's flag had crosses and dragons
• Huns came down from the northern lowlands - a swampy area (dragon area)
• Maiden is the country of Armenia, which St. George saves.

Version 9: The "true" tale?
Martyred in AD 303 for refusing to worship the heathen Roman gods. The tortures he endured at the hand of Emperor Diocletian (symbolized by a dragon in some accounts) may have been modeled after what Jesus experienced.
This version may not have appeared until later, around 494, after the First Church of Rome appeared, when church leaders started modifying the saint's life to suit the church's aims.

• The dragon didn't start on a human diet until the sheep were all gone.
• The dragon only ate sheep because one of the villagers fed it sheep regularly
• St. George only lectured it about leading a godly life, then sent it away

• "In an early fifteenth-century manuscript, the rescued princess is identified with the Queen or Empress Alexandria ... Alexandra is the wife of Dadianus, the Persian king who persecuted George and the Christians" (Source: Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins by Joseph Fontenrose, pg 518.)
• St. George was originally a Roman calvary officer on a white horse who was known for his courage in war.
• In the 16th century, Pope Clement VII decreed that the stories of St. George's dragon-slaying adventures be struck from his biography. The records have St. George dying at least 4 other times. Another source has the First Church of Rome's Pope Gelasii banning St. George.
• Because of this “heroic” deed, other Christian Knights sought to save damsels in distress by killing dragons and thus causing the dragons’ extinction.
  
• Because of the overwhelming number of tales, St. George might possibly be a generic term for when local barons fought
• There is a "dragon hill" near Uffington in England that may have been the sight of this battle.
• The dragon in the tale dates from no earlier than the 12th century and may have had 2 heads, at least in Greek versions
• St. George is the originating member of the English Order of the Garter
• Although one source says the earliest recorded recognition was in the Third Crusade (1189) as a battle-cry, Samantha Tiches in "'Seynt Geoge. On whom Alle Englond Hath Beleve.'" says he appears in Durham (Anglo) rituals as early as the 9th century and in Sacon martyrology in the mid 10th century.
• St. George might have become popular in England in part because of the dragon standard. The Romans used it, as did Wales, so when St. George's fought Britains enemies who carried dragons he fought dragons. Even though St. George never stepped foot in England, the symbol carried and the stories were manipulated
• Is occasionally included in a mummer play where a Turkish Knight plays George who is killed and resurrected as a comedic doctor. Text for one of these plays can be found in The Illustrated Book of Christmas Folklore by Tristram Potter Coffin.
• St. George was born with three marks on his body - the one on his chest being the image of a dragon, which some saw as an omen of his future.
• The early Greek church used images of a Chrisian defeating the dragon Satan to rescue the maiden (Church) personified Ecclesia.
• Stanford images show George being beheaded then resurrected by the Virgin to fight the dragon. This version is not found in Europe.
• His popularity was at its height in 1098 when he aided the invading forces at Antioch.
• In Russia, George = Mikhail and always looks to the right. In western cultures, George looks to the left. This actually exposed an imposter from the west who used a left-facing George.
• In the 13th and 14th centuries, George was often shown as a hired killer.
• St. George and St. Grigori are often confused
• St. George may have started the crosses, icons, cathedral trends since they weren't used until the 4th century
• Turks thought that the dragon was their ancestor
• In Armenia - Christianity became the official religion in 301 and the cross was called Georgievski or the Cross of St. George.
• Sir James Goerge Frazer (1854-1941) drew historical parallels between actual events and St. George in The Golden Bough.

• Edward Gibbon - "George of Cappadocia, a corrupt trader to the Roman Army who rose to become the Arian bishop of Alexandria before meeting a suitably grim fate at the hands of a mob.
• Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable - "a Roman officer martyred near Lydda during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian
• Allegorical tale of Christianity over evil.

• Dragon is the Devil being defeated
• Maiden is the Church
• Town is order and civilization and the dragon is chaos
• Slaves equated him with farm and fertility gods.

• Grigoris (real name?)
• Georgy Pobedonosets (George Bringer of Victory) in 18th century
• Velikomuchenik (Great Sufferer)
• Strastoterpets (Passionate Sufferer)
• Muslim - Jirjis, Khyzer, and Keder
• Russia - Rider Mikhail
• Slavs - Gyurgi, Yuri, Yegori, Yezhi, Irzhi
• Turks - Jargen Gyurdani

• The Getty Museum has a collection of artwork featuring St. George, including:
  • oz1944
  • oz3875
  • od55756
  • oo64886
  • oz2766
  • oz3926
  • oz3945
  • i8_0083a
  • gg20-34.0
• www.pinetreeweb.com/nors-stgeorge.htm

• Cetus, Perseus and Andromeda
• Horus and Set

• www.dalton.org/libraries/fairrosa/dragon/saint.george.html
• www.innotts.co.uk/~asperges/george2.html