Curing the monster Some images of and considerations - Prof. Dr ...

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relatively clear origin but also a significant relevance as a symbol of many
European nations. As he was the patron saint of all those who had devoted their
lives to fighting, St. George was also the patron of the crusaders. They obviously
were the ones who brought the image of St. George as the dragon fighter back. It
then ultimately became a constituent part of his iconography through Jacobus de
Voragine a dominican and archbishop of Genua, who, in the 13. century, included
this legend into his 'Legenda Aurea' (Golden Legend) which was of great influence
on folkloristic piety (Braunfels-Esche 1976: 21 ff.; Egli 1982: 223 ff.). Although
St.George did not officially become the national patron of England until 1347, his
feast, the 23rd of April, received the same rank as the great feasts of the
ecclesiastical year through a synod at Oxford in 1222. Around that time he also
became the national patron of Georgia, Greece, Russia, Hungary, Poland and
Sweden; in Germany he was the patron of the nobility.
Figure 3: Albreht Dürer, St. George killing the dragon. Woodcot ca. 1501/04
That the dragon became the incarnation of evil, the enemy and often enough the
devil in Christian mythology during the last millenium not only became evident
through thousands of churches which were dedicated to St. George all over
Europe but also through the fact that the legends of nearly 60 saints are based,
one way or the other, on dragon killing (Aufhauser 1911: 239); among them are
also women who like St. Martha vanquished the dragon with holy water or St.
Margaretha who became the patron of pregnant women, because, when she was
swallowed by the dragon, the cross which she was wearing grew till it finally burst
the monster (Redaktion ... 1985: 95; cf. Roheim 1972: 299).
That the dragon also has a long tradition in our western military history is, for
example, indicated by the 'dragons', the French cavalrymen in the Thirty Years
War, who were equipped with small-arms called 'fire-spitting dragons'; it seems
that the fact that, for example, the English, French, German, and the Swedish
language have incorporated the Latin 'draco' (which was taken from the Greek
'drakon'), originates from the dragon as a cohort sign of the Romans which they
themselves had adopted from their Teutonic enemies (Höfler 1961: 99). The selfidentification
with the dragon in order to put one's enemies to flight is in itself a