Tuesday 25 April 2017

The truth about St George

The truth about Saint George An article in The Independent headlined This St George’s Day, we should remember that the patron saint of England was an immigrant,” claims that St George was a Turkish immigrant, never set foot in England and was persecuted by the Romans on account of his quaint religious beliefs.

Crusader It’s time to set the record straight. St George was as English as I would be if I lived in England. He was born in Limehouse, went to the Alderman Gruesome comprehensive school and came out illiterate but a well respected street fighter who spent his days drinking warm beer in the Queen Vic. He lived in a cramped terraced house on Darkness Road which he shared with a bricklayer and a jobbing gardener, and he worked as a delivery driver on a zero hours contract with a pizza café.

On 23 April (or its equivalent in the Julian calendar) of 360 AD he heard a commotion from the general area of Blackfriars Bridge. He made his way thither and pushed to the front of the crowd, where he beheld the horrifying spectacle of a vast dragon, the size of at least three elephants tied together, breathing fire so hot that the street lamps wilted and all who came close to it were incinerated.

Crusader2George (he was just plain George in those days, the title came along later) tied his shoelaces and drew his special left-handed sword, smiting the dragon with such speed and strength that its head was completely severed by a single blow, and the animal writhed in agony and fell down dead at his feet.

At which the crowd cheered George to the rafters and the Pope turned up out of nowhere, read George a magic scroll and pinned to his chest the golden medal which converted him into a saint.

After that, unlike most saints, St George never did anything noteworthy ever again. Nonetheless we still celebrate St George’s Day by roasting a goose, baking red and white cakes, dressing up as knights and dragons and pretending to fight each other with plastic sticks, and giving one another gaudily wrapped I-Pads and mobile telephones.

So mark the truth. Never let it be said that St George was a Turkish immigrant. He was as English as you or I would have been, if we were English. If they get away with that, these damned historians will be telling me that Jesus Christ wasn’t born on 25 December of 0 AD, and we can’t have that.

I first published this nonsense in the newsgroup talk.bizarre. The image of St George comes from joeatta78.deviantart.com. The Crusader image came from the Daily Express site.