Talk given at a day-late St George's Day dinner party
Not a lot of people know that St George was married to a lady called Norah. She was not a saint. Far from it. She was fiery, aggressive and always up for a fight. In fact, behind her back, people called her the dragon. And, to divert from this informative essay for a moment, it is for this very reason that many of our English pubs today are called the George and Dragon instead of the perhaps more interesting George and Norah.
George's friends always spoke of him as Poor George, poor meaning that he was to be pitied, rather than not being wealthy, because, in fact, he was loaded and owned a string of Arab horses. However, the epithet 'poor' was changed to Saint when, on the 23rd April in a year not recorded, George got his pike out and, holding it firmly in both hands, approached the unlovely Norah who was reclining on a rustic seat upon the castle lawn.
‘You can put that thing away,' she said, taking a drag on her ciggie.
'But it's been months,' he said limply.
By a stroke of of good fortune that was to change world history, at that very moment a buxom hand maiden appeared and poor George was re-invigorated. 'I have had enough of you Norah,' he said, standing erect again.
'And me you,' she roared, smoke belching from her nostrils in a quite frightening display.
The buxom handmaid ran behind a far-off tree, peeping round to see, and then record, the shenanigans going on.
As George and Norah glared at each other, one of his beautiful horses ambled into view. Holding his pike at a forty five degree angle, George backed away from Norah and gingerly mounted the steed. (Not in a sexy way you rude-minded people!).
Norah took another drag at her fag. 'What are you going to do George?' she sneered, fire and smoke now belching out of her mouth and trickling out from her nose. 'Stuck up on that horse, clasping your pike. What are you going to do?'
'You, you old dragon,' he yelled.
'Oooo, you're so sexy when you're roused,' she said, stubbing her Marlborough out and lying back invitingly.
And that was how George overcame the dragon. It was easy really but, according to the handmaiden who told anyone who would listen, George had fought long and hard with the fiery dragon before laying her.
'Why, he's a saint,' said his friends as one man. 'Laying that fearsome dragon right out in the open like that.'
Of course, due to political correctness, the story became St George slaying the dragon, rather than laying the dragon, it being more acceptable to tell young people about acts of violence than acts of sex.
This story has been passed down from generation to generation in our family because, and internet research has confirmed it, Saint George happens to be my great great great great uncle on my father's side, and that makes him decidedly English and not Turkish as some historians would have you believe. And that is why we have him as our patron saint and celebrate his victory over the dragon every 23rd April, or in this case, the 24th!!
