champions of the old king, who were buried with him. They did not stir, but gazed with blank eyes at the taper flame, and snorted vapour from their nostrils. Gest despoiled the old king of all his gold and armour, and was about to rob him of his sword, when the taper expired. Then, at once, the five hundred rose from the dragon-ship, and the dæmon king rushed at him; they grappled and fought. In his need, Gest invoked S. Olaf, who appeared with light streaming from his body, and illumining the interior of the cairn. Before this light, the power of the dead men failed, and Gest completed his work in the vault'. In the story of Sigurd and Fafnir, the dragon is more than half man; but in the battle of Gull-Thorir the creature is scaled and winged in the most approved Oriental style3.

Let me place in apposition a few of the Aryan myths relating to the strife between the sun and the dæmon of darkness, or storm.

Indian myth. Indra fights Ahi.

Indra kills Ahi, who is identified with the stormcloud, and releases from him the pent-up waters for want of which the earth is perishing. Ahi a serpent.

7 Bârdar S. Snæfellsass. Kjobnhavn. 1860. pp. 41-43. Gull-Thoris Saga. Leipzig, 1858. c. iv.

Persian myth. Mithra and Ahriman.

Mithra is clearly identical with the sun, and Ahri

man with darkness. Ahriman a dragon.

Greek myth. Apollo and Python; Perseus and the

sea-monster.

Apollo identical with the sun, Python the stormcloud. Apollo delivers his mother from the assault of the dragon.

Perseus delivers Andromeda from the water-born serpent. In other Greek fables it is the earth which is saved from destruction by the victory of the hero.

Teutonic myth. Sigfried and the dragon.

Sigfried conquers the dragon who keeps guard over a hidden treasure, the hero kills the dragon and brings to light the treasure.

Scandinavian myth. Sigurd and Fafnir.

Like the myth of Sigfried. Other, and perhaps earlier form, the dragon is a king of Hades, who cannot endure light, and who has robbed the earth of its gold. The hero descends to his realm, fights, overcomes him, and despoils him of his treasures.

Christian myth. S. George and dragon.

S. George delivers a princess from a monster, who is about to devour her. According to an

other version, the dragon guards the spring of water, and the country is languishing for want of water; S. George restores to the land the use of the spring by slaying the dragon.

This table might have been considerably extended by including Keltic and Sclavonic fables, but it is sufficiently complete to show that the legend of S. George and the dragon forms part of one of the sacred myths of the Aryan family, and it is impossible not to grasp its signification in the light cast upon it by the Vedic poems.

And when we perceive how popular this venerable myth was in heathen nations of Europe, it is not surprising that it should perpetuate itself under Christianity, and that, when once transferred to a hero of the new creed, it should make that hero one of the most venerated and popular of all the saints in the calendar.

In the reign of Constantine the Great, there existed a great and beautiful church between Ramula, the ancient Arimathæa, and Lydda or Decapolis, dedicated by the Emperor to S. George, over his tomb. Ramula also bore the name of Georgia, and the inhabitants pretended that the warrior saint was a native of their town. A temple of Juno at Constantinople was converted into a

church, with the same dedication, by the first Christian Emperor, and according to one tradition, the bones of the martyr were translated from his tomb near Lydda, to the church in the great city of Constantine. At an early date his head was in Rome, or at all events one of his heads, for another found its way to the church of MaresMoutier, in Picardy, after the capture of Byzantium by the Turks, when it was taken from a church erected by Constantine Monomachus, dedicated to the saint. The Roman head, long forgotten, was rediscovered in 751, with an inscription on it which identified it with S. George. In 1600 it was given to the church of Ferrara. In Rome, at Palermo, and at Naples there were churches at a very early date, consecrated to the martyr. In 509 Clotilda founded a nunnery at Chelles in his honour; and Clovis II. placed a convent at Barala under his invocation. In this religious house was preserved an arm of S. George, which in the ninth century was transported to Cambray; and fifty years later S. Germain dedicated an altar in Paris to the champion. In the sixth century a church was erected to his honour at Mayence; Clothaire in the following century dedicated one at Nimègue, and his brother another in Alsace. George had a

monastery dedicated to him at Thetford, founded in the reign of Canute; a collegiate church in Oxford placed under his invocation in the reign of the Conqueror. S. George's, Southwark, dates from before the Norman invasion. The priory church of Griesly in Derbyshire was dedicated to SS. Mary and George, in the reign of Henry I. The Crusades gave an impetus to the worship of our patron. He appeared in light on the walls of Jerusalem, waving his sword, and led the victorious assault on the Holy City. Unobtrusively he and S. Michael slipped into the offices, and exercised the functions, of the Dioscuri. Robert of Flanders, on his return from the Holy Land, presented part of an arm of the saint to the city of Toulouse, and other portions to the Countess Matilda and to the abbey of Auchin. Another arm of S. George fell miraculously from heaven upon the altar of S. Pantaleon at Cologne, and in honour of it Bishop Anno founded a church.

The church of Villers-Saint-Leu contains relics of the saint, which were given to it in 1101 by Alexander, chaplain of Count Ernest, who had received them from Baldwin at Jerusalem.

The enthusiasm of the Crusaders for the Eastern soldier-saint who led them to battle, soon raised S.