Page:The book of saints and heroes.djvu/379

 set of stories was accepted in the West, and written down in the holy books, till in the sixteenth century the pope Clement VII commanded them to be left out, and ordered St. George to be set down in the calendar of saints, merely as a holy martyr.

According to this western version George early left his birthplace in Asia Minor and went to Africa, where he settled in a town called Silene. Near Silene was a large pond in which lived a dragon, with fierce eyes that seemed starting out of his head, and a long, thick, scaly tail which could curl itself up in rings and look quite small, when it was not being used to knock over men or houses or something of that sort; and more to be dreaded than his tail was the breath of the monster's nostrils, which poisoned everyone that approached him.

This horrible dragon was equally at home on land or water, and great was the terror of the people of Silene when they beheld the tall reeds that fringed the pond beginning to wave and rustle, for they knew that their enemy was preparing to leave his lair and seek his dinner in the streets of the town. Hastily they swept their children inside their houses and shut their doors tight, but woe be to any man or woman who did not get quickly enough under shelter! It was in vain that the soldiers marched out to destroy him; his breath, or his tail, or his long, iron claws slew those that were foremost, and the others fled madly back to the protection of the town.

At length the King of Silene summoned a council of the wise men, and after much talk it was decided that two sheep should every day be sacrificed to the monster, on condition that he should allow the citizens to go free. Unluckily, the sheep were few and the citizens many, and by and bye there came a day when the sheep were all gone and the reeds on the pond waved and