Note 41.1 — Chapter XVII · THE RESCUE OF ANDROMEDA IN SAGAS.

Such is the legend in its ecclesiastical shape; and in this edifying guise (though not to the same length) it seems to have been given, at least in England, together with some equally valuable details of the saint’s martyrdom, every year by the priest at the proper moment during divine service, on the Sunday preceding the saint’s festival, as part of the notice of the feast. It thus came to the people stamped with the authority of the Church.41.1 The Christian nations of the Balkan peninsula have preserved it in popular tradition, with some circumstances which more nearly recall the classic saga. The name of the city desolated by the dragon is given as Troyan. Its inhabitants were given up to various kinds of sin. The blessed Virgin, having paid a visit to the place, returns to heaven bathed in tears, and recites in an assembly of the saints a dreadful catalogue of iniquities whereof she declares the inhabitants are guilty. The thundering Elijah advises that God send them terrible maladies, the plague, the typhus and the small-pox, to convert them from their evil ways. After seven years, however, they are still unconverted. Unseasonable and severe frost and snow are then tried for seven years, and after that seven years of drought; but all in vain. Then God made a lake beside the city; and in it He placed an insatiable dragon, which entered the town thrice a day, and devoured on every visit three hundred of the people. Over and above these hearty meals the monster every night exacted a fair maiden from the white city of Troyan; and soon the whole place was depopulated. The turn of Sava, the king’s daughter, came at last. She was conducted by the nobility of Troyan to the cold waters of the lake, and there abandoned to her fate. Suddenly a youth appeared upon a dappled courser, brandishing his mortal lance. Advancing to the shore, he greeted the maiden with the name of God; and she politely returned the salutation: “Life and health to thee, O hero on the dappled steed!” He goes on to inquire what she is doing there alone by the water; and she tells him her story. Then he catechises her as to her morals. Has her heart been always pure? Has she always been obedient to her parents? Has she ever adored the god of silver, or the god of gold, to which her people are in the habit of bowing down? When this highly orthodox knight has been satisfied on these points, he dismounts from his dappled steed, plants his lance in the grass, and says to the princess: “Pray examine my head a little, for I feel strangely sleepy.” Whereupon he lays his head in her lap, and she proceeds to perform for him a service doubtless highly appreciated by the peasants who sing the ballad. Under the soothing influence of her gentle fingers he falls asleep; and while he rests the lake rises in waves and the dragon emerges. The bashful maid was ashamed to awaken her deliverer; but her tears rolled down upon his face, and he leaped up like one possessed. He tore out the lance from the earth, and pricking his steed forward until it stood up to its knees in the lake, struck the monster in the jaw with his lance, dragged it ashore, bound it with a silken girdle, and put the girdle into the princess’ hand. He directed her to conduct it through the city, in the hope that the sight would at last convert the inhabitants, that they might desist from their infinite wickednesses, destroy the god of silver, worship the true God, and venerate himself, Saint George, as their patron. “If they will not be converted, set free,” he says, “the insatiable dragon, and he will devour the people of Troyan.” The argument thus presented on his behalf by the princess was irresistible. The city was converted, and its harvests of corn and wine thenceforward prospered. Its patron, Saint George, became an object of reverence, as he is to this day; but whether the dragon also became a reformed character, or was put to death, the ballad omits to inform us.43.1