HE transfixed the dragon, and then bade the princess pass her girdle round it, and fear nothing. When this was done, the monster followed like a docile hound. When they had brought it into the town, the people fled before it; but George recalled them, bidding them put aside all fear. Then the king and all his people, twenty thousand men, without counting women and children, were baptized, and George smote off the head of the monster.

Other versions of the story are to the effect that the princess was shut up in a castle, and that all within were perishing for want of water, which could only be obtained from a fountain at the base of a hill, and this was guarded by the dragon, from which St George delivered them.

This story was accepted by the uncritical clerks of the Middle Ages; but though the legend itself may be fable, St George himself is a fact.*