squire. This knight was the good Prince Arthur, of all the knights of the Faerie Queen the bravest and the best. To him she told her sorrowful tale.
‘Be of good cheer and take comfort,’ said the good prince. ‘I will never leave you until I have freed the Red Cross Knight.’
And the prince kept his promise.
The story of St. George and the Dragon will tell you how Una and her knight met together again and were married, and forgot their past sorrows in their great happiness.
II
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
Long, long ago, before the things that happened were written down in history books, a spiteful fairy came into the castle of an English king. She saw a beautiful baby-boy, the king’s little son, lying asleep, and, out of mischief, she ran away with him and left her own ugly little fairy baby there instead.
But when she had stolen the baby, she could not be troubled to take care of him. So she laid him down in the furrow of a ploughed field.
Soon a ploughman, with his horses, came that way. He was a kind man, and he lifted the baby up off the cold brown earth and carried him home to his cottage. He called him Georgos, and brought him up as if he were his own boy.
When Georgos was a big boy he did not care to be a ploughman. He wished to be a knight and fight for people who were not as strong as he was. So he went to the court of the Faerie Queen, and she took him for one of her knights. She called him George, and gave him armour all shining with silver and with a red cross on his shield and on his breast.
You have heard the story of Una, so you know that it was George of the Red Cross who left the fairy court to fight for her and to be her knight.
There was no sadder knight to be found in all Fairyland than George of the Red Cross, after the wicked magician had made him think that Una was false and bad. With a heavy heart he rode away from the magician’s cottage in the grey dawn, with the dwarf sadly following him.
As he went through the woods he met a knight riding with a beautiful lady in red robes that sparkled with jewels. The lady’s horse was all decked out with gold, and from its bridle hung golden bells.
Although she was so beautiful, she was really a wicked witch, who was never so happy as when she was making men fight and kill each other.
When she saw George coming, she said to the knight with whom she rode, ‘Here comes a knight! you must fight with him.’
So the knight rode furiously at George, and George met him as fiercely, and both their spears splintered as they crashed against each other. Then, with their swords they cut and thrust and hacked. The knight cut through a piece of George’s helmet by the fury of one blow, but George gave him such a stroke in return, that his sword went through the steel helmet right into the knight’s head, and he fell dead.
When the witch saw him fall, she galloped away, screaming with fear. George rode after her and begged her not to be afraid, but the witch pretended to cry bitterly. She told him she did not cry for sorrow that the knight was dead, but only because she was frightened. She said that the knight who lay there had wished to marry her, but that she did not love him, and liked George much better.
The witch looked so beautiful, with her red robes and splendid jewels, and pretended so well to be simple and good, that George believed all that she said.
‘Do not be afraid,’ he said, ‘I will take care of you, and be your friend.’
So he did not think of Una any more, but rode away happily with the witch, who said her name was Fidessa.
In the middle of the day, when the sun had grown very hot, they rested in the shade of two great trees.
The spreading branches of the trees were overgrown with grey moss, and their green leaves were never still, but whispered and trembled as if the wind was blowing on them. George thought he would make a garland of these fresh leaves to put on Fidessa’s dark hair. He plucked a little branch, and, as he broke it, red drops of blood trickled down from the place where it was broken.
Then a sad voice spoke out of the tree, and told him that the trees were not really trees, but a knight and a lady, who had been bewitched by the magic of a wicked witch.
The witch who had done it was Fidessa, and when Fidessa heard the tree speak, she was afraid that George would find her out. But George was too simple and too true to think that beautiful Fidessa could be so wicked. He was very sorry for having hurt the tree-man, and with some earth plastered up the place that bled.
Then he and Fidessa hurried away from the place of the shivering trees.
When they had ridden for a long time they came to a gorgeous palace where only bad people stayed. Fidessa made George come with her into the palace, and while they stayed there she got some of the wicked knights of the palace to fight with George and try to kill him. But George was braver and stronger than any of these knights, and instead of their killing him, he killed them.
One day Fidessa went from home, and, while she was away, Una’s dwarf, who had never left George, went wandering through the palace.
In a dark and horrible dungeon he found many knights, and kings, and ladies and princes shut up as prisoners.
The dwarf ran and told George, and the Red Cross Knight, fearing that he also would be made a prisoner and cast into the dungeon if he stayed longer in the enchanted palace, rode away. The wounds he had got in his last fight were still unhealed, so that he could not go fast.
When Fidessa got back and found him gone, she rode after him as fast as ever she could.
When she found him he was resting, with his armour off, on the mossy grass by the side of a sparkling fountain. He was peacefully listening to the sweet song of birds, and to the tinkling water, when Fidessa’s red robes showed through the trees.
She talked to him so cunningly that soon she persuaded him to think that she loved him very much and meant him nothing but kindness.
Now the witch knew that the water of the fountain was magic water, and if any one drank it all his strength would leave him. So she made George lie down on the sandy gravel and drink. In one minute his strength all went from him and he was no stronger than a tiny boy.
No sooner had this happened than there walked out from amongst the trees an enormous ugly giant. In his hand, for a club, he carried a big oak-tree that he had pulled out of the earth by the roots. When he saw George he rushed at him like an earthquake, and smote him such a mighty blow that George fell fainting to the ground. Then the giant picked him up as if he had been a helpless little baby, and carried him away, and threw him into the darkest dungeon of his castle in the woods.
Una’s dwarf, who had hidden in the bushes and seen all that happened, ran away, lest the giant should kill him.
But Fidessa, the wicked witch, made friends with the giant, and he made her his wife.
He gave her a robe of purple and gold to wear, and put a splendid gold crown on her head. And to make people more afraid of her than they were already, he gave her a horrible beast with seven heads and a long scaly tail of brass to ride on.
For months and months George was a prisoner in the gloomy dungeon. The light never came into it, nor any air. He was chained with heavy iron bands, and was given scarcely anything to eat or to drink. His face grew white and thin, and his eyes grew hollow.
