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Popular Culture Review
veneration of the saint reached England St. George’s story presented him as a
Roman knight who rode about the countryside righting wrongs and preaching
Christianity, who saved a city and a princess from a voracious human-eating
dragon, and wdiose martyrdom under Diocletian was a miraculous event. St.
George was twice killed, tvsdce brought back to life, dying only on the third
attempt at execution, when he was beheaded (Caxton 3: 129).
Most of the elements of this legend appeared in the numerous plays,
pageants, and processions mounted by English parishes, large and small, rich
and poor, to celebrate St. George’s Day (Riches 1). Many churchwardens’
accounts record an image of St. George being carried about, a dra