Again, if you notice, after Charles II's day a whole quantity of new names came in from Germany and Holland. Under the Hanoverians the young ladies were either Sophia or Charlotte or Caroline or Harriet; and their brothers George or William or Augustus. Augustus was perhaps not such a favourite as the rest, and William had, of course, been known since the days of the Conqueror. George was more rarely to be met with, but has become firmly established since the Elector of Hanover succeeded Queen Anne on the English throne.

Now to-day, when I am writing, is St. George's Day, April 23, 1911, and this year will see the coronation of His Majesty King George V, so I think I ought to end this book with a little sketch of St. George, who was adopted long ago as the Patron Saint of England.

There are a great many stories about him, of the horrible things that he suffered, and the wonderful and quite impossible things that he did, and he is often mixed up with (a wholly different) George of Cappadocia, who was a bishop and a heretic. But though our George's sufferings for the Christian faith were exaggerated, and his marvellous deeds a fairy tale, there really did  live once upon a time a man who grew famous as one of the Seven Champions of Christendom, and when you have heard the stories about him you can choose which of them you would like to believe.

Of course you know that he is always spoken of as St. George and the Dragon, almost as if he and the dragon made up one body, as the centaurs of old Greece were composed of a man and horse. But the first tales told of him from very early times make no mention of a dragon at all. George was, they said, born in Asia Minor, and his father, who was a Christian, was put to death for his religion in one of the Roman persecutions. His mother, in terror for the child's life, fled with him to Palestine, and when he was about fifteen or sixteen, he, like many other Christian boys, entered the Roman Army and may have marched under the eagles eastwards to the Euphrates and the Tigris, and have made part of the force which besieged the splendid cities of Ctesiphon and Seleucia. At any rate he speedily became known to his generals as a soldier who could be trusted, not only to attack but to defend, which often needs very different qualities; and there was no trained veteran among the legions who could bear cold or heat, hunger or thirst, better than young George. Then came the news that his mother was dead, leaving him a large fortune.

George was now alone in the world, and, feeling suddenly tired of the life he was leading, he bade his comrades farewell, and took ship for the West and the court of the Emperor Diocletian. Here, he thought, he could soon rise to fame, and perhaps some day he would become the governor of a small province or the prefect of a large one. But his hopes were dashed by the breaking out of the persecution against the Christians. The estates of many rich people were seized, and the owners, if not condemned to death, were left to starve. So George divided his money between those who needed it most, and after that he went straight to Diocletian and declared himself a Christian.

Up to this point there is nothing in the story that might not have happened—which indeed did  happen—to hundreds of young men, but the chroniclers of St. George were not content to stop here, and began to invent the marvels that they loved. As St. George refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods he was sentenced to death, after first being tortured. Soldiers, so said the monkish historians, came to his prison to thrust him through with spears, but the moment the spear touched him it snapped in two. He was bound to a wheel which was set about with swords and knives, but an angel came and delivered him, and no wounds were found on his body. A pit of quicklime was powerless to injure his flesh, and, after running about in red-hot iron shoes, the following morning he walked up to the palace unhurt and did homage to Diocletian. The emperor, enraged at the failure of his plans, ordered him to be scourged, and then given poisoned water to drink; but as neither whip nor poison could injure him, his persecutor, in despair, bade an officer cut off his head with a sword, and so St. George obtained his crown of martyrdom.

Such was the tale that was told with eagerness among the Christians of the East, but quite another set of stories was accepted in the West, and written down in the holy books, till in the sixteenth century the pope Clement VII commanded them to be left out, and ordered St. George to be set down in the calendar of saints, merely as a holy martyr.

According to this western version George early left his birthplace in Asia Minor and went to Africa, where he settled in a town called Silene. Near Silene was a large pond in which lived a dragon, with fierce eyes that seemed starting out of his head, and a long, thick, scaly tail which could curl itself up in rings and look quite small, when it was not being used to knock over men or houses or something of that sort; and more to be dreaded than his tail was the breath of the monster's nostrils, which poisoned everyone that approached him.

This horrible dragon was equally at home on land or water, and great was the terror of the people of Silene when they beheld the tall reeds that fringed the pond beginning to wave and rustle, for they knew that their enemy was preparing to leave his lair and seek his dinner in the streets of the town. Hastily they swept their children inside their houses and shut their doors tight, but woe be to any man or woman who did not get quickly enough under shelter! It was in vain that the soldiers marched out to destroy him; his breath, or his tail, or his long, iron claws slew those that were foremost, and the others fled madly back to the protection of the town.

At length the King of Silene summoned a council of the wise men, and after much talk it was decided that two sheep should every day be sacrificed to the monster, on condition that he should allow the citizens to go free. Unluckily, the sheep were few and the citizens many, and by and bye there came a day when the sheep were all gone and the reeds on the pond waved and rustled more wildly than ever. Then another council was held by men with white faces and shaking voices, and it was agreed that every evening the names of all the young people belonging to the city should be placed in a bowl, and a child with a bandage over his eyes should pick one. The boy or girl thus chosen was to be the victim of the dragon.

A month passed and thirty children had vanished from the town, when one day the slip of paper drawn from the bowl bore the name of the princess. The king had known all along, of course, that it was likely to happen, and the princess knew it too, but she refused to be sent away to some other country as her father wished, declaring she would stay and take her chance with the rest. So the morning after the fatal lot had been drawn she dressed herself in her royal robes, and with her head held high went forth in the sunshine alone to her doom. But as soon as she drew near to the horrible shaking reeds and there was no one to see, her courage gave way, and she flung herself down on a stone and wept.

For a long while the princess remained thus, when suddenly she sat up and looked about her. What was that noise she heard? Surely it was a horse's tread. And certainly that could be nothing but armour which glistened so brightly in the sun! Had a deliverer indeed come? And as the thought passed through her mind the reeds shook more violently than ever, and something large and heavy began to move among them.

But if the princess saw and shuddered, St. George had seen likewise, and rejoiced. The story of the dragon had reached to the far countries through which he had been travelling, and he instantly understood what lay before him. Yet, would he be in time? For the pond lay near to the weeping girl and he must manage to get behind the dragon before he could strike, close enough for the tail to have no power over him and not so close as to be slain by the poisonous breath.

It was not easy—dragon-slaying never is—and if it had  been, the name of the dragon would never have been bound up with that of St. George. So he rapidly unwound a scarf that lay about his helmet to keep off the sun, and tied it over his nose and mouth. Then, holding his spear in rest, he galloped up to the monster who, with a roar of anger and triumph, advanced to meet him. But swiftly the knight sprang to one side, thrusting the spear as he did so right down the throat of the dragon. With a bellow that was heard far beyond Silene the creature rolled over, and, though not actually dead, was plainly dying.

Take off your girdle, said St. George quickly, and pass it from behind over the head of the beast. He cannot harm you now.

With trembling fingers the princess untied the long, silken cord from her dress and did as the knight bade her, and so they all three crossed the meadows to Silene, where St. George cut off the head of the dragon in the presence of the people, and at his urgent request the king and the whole of his subjects consented to become Christians.