WTF has St George got to do with us anyway?
A Greek from what is now Turkey of Georgian (Parthian?) ancestry who was a mutineer in the Eastern Roman Empire's army, getting himself killed because he pissed the emperor Diocletian off over praying to Christian space fairies? Never set foot in Britain, so no reason to be associated with us. Damn foreign pretenders.
There's enough authentic English-based saints to choose from, St Gildas would be a good choice - recorded by history as a genuine dragon-slayer
This is the problem. When it came for the time for the English saint to be "sainted" they said who was that guy who slayed the dragon. Name began with a G and some Turkish immigrant said "Oh you mean George". And there we have it.
Should have been Gildas - but actually not as he was Welsh FFS!! By the way the above paragraph is pure fiction
Read below and you will understand
External Link/Members Only I have paraphrased the essence
It is commonly accepted that St George is the Patron Saint of England. But should we instead be raising the White Dragon flag of the Anglo-Saxon King St Edmund on November 20th?
It is surprising to learn that St George was not the first patron saint of England. That honour was originally held by St Edmund, or Edmund the Martyr, King of East Anglia in the 9th century AD.
Born on Christmas Day 841 AD, Edmund succeeded to the throne of Anglo-Saxon East Anglia in 856. Brought up as a Christian, he fought alongside King Alfred of Wessex against the pagan Viking and Norse invaders (the Great Heathen Army) until 869/70 when his forces were defeated and Edmund was captured by the Vikings. He was ordered to renounce his faith and share power with the pagan Vikings, but he refused. Edmund was then bound to a tree, shot through by arrows and beheaded. The date was 20th November. His decapitated head is said to have been reunited with its body with the help of a talking wolf who protected the head and then called out “Hic, Hic, Hic” (“Here, Here, Here”) to alert Edmund’s followers.
St Edmund’s influence began to fade when, during the Third Crusade in 1199, King Richard I visited the tomb of St. George in Lydda on the eve of battle. The next day he won a great victory. Following this triumph, Richard adopted St. George as his personal patron and protector of the army.
The rest, as they say is History!
