In 1812 the following poems, “The Birth of St. George” and “St. George and the Dragon”, were reprinted in Volume III of the fifth edition of Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. (Please note that Google Books states that this is Volume 2, but the book at that link is actually Volume 3.)  The first of these poems casts St. George’s birth in a suitably heroic and mysterious mold. (Of perhaps greater importance to the original audience of this poem, it shows that he was English.) Percy cites Richard Johnson’s Famous Historie of the Seaven Champions of Christendom as a source for this poem, but that book presents the same story but in a different form. So it is not clear exactly where Percy obtained this version of “The Birth of St. George”.

The second poem, found in the Pepys Collection (Pepys 1.526-527) retells the story of George slaying the dragon, but rather than following this with the story of his martyrdom, tells of his conquering “heathen lands”, and eventually marrying Sabra, returning to England, and living happily ever after.

The versions presented here have been transcribed from Percy’s book. The spelling has been modernized slightly, but the words themselves have not been changed.
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