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HERE BE DRAGONS (St George’s Day)
By Stuart Kerner

Suitable for Key Stage 3

Aim

To consider the story of St George and dragons in our own lives.

Preparation and materials

You will need an English flag, or something bearing St George’s cross.

Bible reading

Revelation 12.9–17

Assembly

Ask your audience who the patron saint of England is; hopefully you will receive the correct answer that it is St George. Show the England flag and comment that the red cross is actually the cross of St George.
Say that St George is of course most famous for slaying a dragon. But what is a dragon and do dragons really exist?
Tell them that Webster’s Dictionary says that the word dragon comes to us from the Greek for serpent or snake and is a fabulous animal usually represented as a monstrous winged creature with scaly skin, a crested head and enormous claws.
Say that you may be surprized to know that real dragons do still exist: the water dragon is a popular small lizard often kept as a pet, and the Komodo dragon (not discovered until 1912!) is the largest known lizard today, reaching lengths of 10 feet [3 m], and 150 pounds [68 kg]. The bright yellow tongue could be mistaken for a flame, and its vicious nature would scare anyone away.
Admit that these are actually just big lizards rather than actual dragons.
Comment that the best place to find dragons is in fairy tales and legends as an accessory whose main function is to show off the bravery of the knight challenging him, but to Christians the dragon is something else.
The famous story where St George saved a young woman by slaying a dragon is unlikely to be based on fact, even if we say that the dragon may have been a crocodile, as some Orthodox Christians claim.
The story is almost certainly a metaphor for the rescue of the Church from persecution and the triumph of innocence over evil, the princess representing the Church, and the dragon, Satan. The dragon as a Christian symbol of evil comes to us from the book of Revelation of St John – the final book of the Bible. Revelation 12.9 says: ‘the great dragon was thrown down, that serpent of old that led the whole world astray, whose name is Satan or the Devil’; and Psalm 91.13 ‘the dragon shall God trample under foot’.
Today’s hymn has the line ‘... giants have fled, and the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.’ If only they were! There are still dragons all around us – only not of the scaly variety. These ‘dragons’, which stalk the planet crushing whole nations and communities in their path, are poverty, debt, warfare, disease; and there are smaller ‘dragons’ which lurk in our minds and in our hearts – things in our lives which we personally have to conquer – fear, hatred, guilt, and envy.
Comment that all of us have ‘dragons’ in our lives – something which we fear above all else. For some people it is exams which they must battle against; for others it is staying out of trouble; and still for others, it is combating bullying. What are your dragons?