St. George and the Dragon: The Complete Legend of England’s Patron Saint | English Folklore for Sleep

St. George and the Dragon: The Complete Legend of England’s Patron Saint | English Folklore for SleepA slow, quiet retelling of the legend of St. George, made for falling asleep to.He is the patron saint of England and he almost certainly never set foot in it. The man behind the legend was a soldier somewhere in the eastern Roman empire, executed for refusing to give up his religion, and for about eight hundred years the dragon had nothing to do with him at all.That part arrives late — attached to his name in the medieval period, carried west by people coming back from the crusades, and set in a city being slowly emptied by something living in a lake outside the walls. First the sheep. Then a lottery, and the children. Then the king's own daughter, walked out to the water in her wedding clothes because a rule is a rule. And then a man riding past who happened to see what was going on.What's strange is what happens next in the older versions: he doesn't kill it there. He wounds it, and the girl leads it back into the city on her own belt, docile as a dog, and the whole population watches. The killing only comes after. That detail got quietly dropped from most retellings, and it's the best thing in the story.Then the long afterlife: how a Middle Eastern martyr ended up on the English flag, on churches all over Europe, and shared between more countries than almost any other saint.The recording itself is the usual thing. A low, even voice, no music, no sound effects, nothing that rises or drops or suddenly arrives. Slow enough that following along stops feeling necessary somewhere in the first twenty minutes. If you drift off before the rider arrives and surface centuries later, that's the intended use. Most people don't make it past the first half hour, and the rest will still be here tomorrow night.Put it on, turn the volume down, and let it go on without you.Mythology & Folklore for Sleep — long, calm retellings of Greek myths, Norse legends, Egyptian tales, Hindu epics, Chinese classics, English folklore and old stories from around the world, made for insomnia and the hours when you can't sleep. Bedtime stories for adults, told in a slow, quiet voice. New episodes every day.