George is venerated across an extraordinary geographic range, patron of England, Georgia, Ethiopia, soldiers, and many cities, on the strength of a legend and very little history. The historical core is a soldier-martyr of the early fourth century, probably executed under Diocletian's persecution; the famous dragon appears only much later, in medieval accounts, and became his defining image. In the story he arrives at a city terrorized by a dragon to which the people offer human victims, saves the princess chosen by lot, subdues the beast, and converts the citizens.
The tale is a Christian reworking of an ancient motif, the hero who slays the monster to free the maiden, and it made George an emblem of courage against evil that crusaders carried across the Mediterranean, which is how his red cross became the flag of England and a device on many others. His wide veneration, including in Islamic tradition where he is sometimes identified with the immortal figure al-Khidr, makes him one of the most thoroughly cross-cultural of saints.