Page:Renowned history of the seven champions of Christendom (6).pdf/4

 SEVEN CHAMPIONS, &c. 4

which country was at that time annoyed with a burning dragon, whose hunger, if it were not every day appeased with the body of a true virgin, he would breathe forth such a stench from his nostrils, as infect ed the whole country with a horrible plague, which for four and twenty years together continued, till there was not one virgin left but the King’s Daughter only, and she ready next day to be offered up in sacrifice to him, if the dragon in the mean time was not destroyed: wherefore the King, her father, proclaimed that, whosever would combat with the dragon, and preserve his daughter's life, in renowm thereof should have her to wife, and the crown of Egypt after his decease; all which was made known to St. George, by a hermit of that country; whereupon he resolved to undertake the adventure, and lodging with the hermit that night, the next morning mounting his steed, he took his journey to a valley, whither the King’s Daughter was leading by sage matrons to be made a prey to the dragon’s jaws, whom our English Knight accosting, returning her back to her father, promised to kill that enemy of Egypt’s health, or lose his life in the encounter, and so; like a bold adventurous knight, rode to the place where the dragon had his residence. This horrible dragon, whose monstrous proportion would have frightened any body but only St. George as soon as she beheld him, wallowed from her hide, ous den, and gave him a fierce assault with her wings and tail, who nimbly avoided her fury, gave her such a thrust with his spear, that it shivered into five hundred pieces; the dragon coming on afresh smote him such a deadly blow, as felled both man and horse to the ground; when again rising and stepping a little backwards, he went under the protection of an orange tree, which was of such virtue,that no venom thin durst approach unto it, where this valiant knight while rested him, and refreshed himself with the