I just realized it is St. Georges day.

In the last year or so, St. George and similar have pushed their way into my life. St. George’s Island was a 800AD ish Slavic settlement on the Morava Valley near to Velegrad. There stood St. George’s chapel which must have been a very early church indeed reputed to have been built by Irish-Scots monks in the late 800’s – even before the christianization of the Slavs by Sts. Methodius and Cyril.

One of the first churches on Czechia was the St. Georges basilica at Prague Castle founded in 920 and there are many churches dedicated to St. George in the country.

The first day of swimming was also associated with St. George’s day for Slavs (April 24th not 23rd though here).

But the imagery of St. George is the same as that of Perun, Slavic God of thunder who fights Veles, God of the Underworld and the image of a knight lancing a dragon would have been a familiar image to the Slavic pagans. One can imagine that St. George and perhaps even St, Michael would echo Perun for them.

Finally, I have come to see this image also as one that references earth energies…. Bringing natural earth energies under control.

Happy St. Georges Day.