Hello there! St George here. Patron St of England, thanks to all of you lot for voting me in.
My Saint's day is on April 23rd. Firstly though, what is a Saint you're probably wondering?
Every nation has a Patron Saint . This would be someone that you would call
upon in times of great peril to help save the country from enemy attacks.
I've got some friends you might have heard of. There's St David Patron Saint of Wales a great
teacher and preacher. He's thought to have made some miracles occur, including:
bringing a boy back to life by splashing tears in his face, and restoring a blind man s sight.
St Andrew, he's up north. Patron Saint of Scotland and lots of other countries too.
He gets shared around a fair bit. Then there's St Patrick Patron Saint
of Ireland - a missionary who was sent to Ireland and later became bishop there.
Anyway, enough about them. Today is all about me. Not much is known about me,
I liked to keep my life out of the limelight. There s no Tik Tok s about St George.
So who am I? Well my parents were Christians of Greek origin. My father was in the Roman
army before me, so naturally I wanted to follow in his footsteps when I grew up.
Sadly, he died for his faith when I was only 14. I actually became a member of the Praetorian guard.
We were an elite group of the Roman army whose members served as personal bodyguards to the
emperor. We would escort them to different places and gather intelligence for them.
Sadly, I would also lose my life for my faith. I was put to death on 23rd April,
303 ACE. Not the greatest date in my life to be remembered by. They chopped off my head.
There is a legend that I fought a dragon. Between you and I, it's a great story but
it never happened. Quite often the dragon was used as a way to describe the devil to people so maybe
they were meaning that I fought against evil. Anyway, the story goes that a dragon was causing
panic in a city in Libya. I arrived there and found that in order for the people to
stop being tormented by the dragon, they had to give him two sheep to eat every day. However,
eventually the sheep were not enough, so they had to start sacrificing people instead of the sheep.
The sacrificed people were voted for by the townsfolk. No one was immune to being
offered for sacrifice. When I arrived, the King's daughter had been voted for.
It was customary for someone to offer to take her place if this was to happen. However,
as you can imagine, no one stepped forward to sacrifice themselves. Enter, St George.
I rode over on my horse and saved the girl by slaying the dragon with my lance.
The King was overjoyed and so grateful. He offered me a tonne of treasure. However,
I did not care for it as a reward. Instead, I distributed it to poorer people in the local area.
They were very grateful, and when I spoke to them about my faith, they converted to Christianity and
even went as far to get baptised. It's a nice story.
In the 13th century I became associated with the crusaders. We often rode in white
clothing with a red cross across it. This was associated with the Knights templar.
Unfortunately, I seem to have got the wrong memo today as I've got my colours back to front.
Oh well. There are actually historical sources of me wearing a white cross on a red background.
Anyway, the red cross on the white background became an important symbol
for anyone (especially rulers) who wanted to associate themselves with the crusaders.
You may even reckon that you've seen my cross before. It makes up part of
the Union Jack that serves as the flag for the United Kingdom. However, on its own,
the red cross on the white background is used as the flag for England on its own. Ashamedly,
I haven t ever even visited England, despite being the patron St. Some people think that you
should have someone else as your patron St who has closer ties to the country. What do you think?
So how can you celebrate St George s day? Well, I don t like people making a fuss. What am I saying,
who doesn't love a good party. You can show your appreciation by flying the flag with
the red cross on the white background. Some people choose to sing the hymn Jerusalem,
and lots of people choose to eat traditional English food to celebrate.
If you really want to cheer up St George, you could like and subscribe to this YouTube channel.
They have lots of historical videos about all sorts of people and things.
Anyway, that s all from me. I'm off now to see if I can find a REAL dragon to slay! Tally-Ho!