In the legend as the Golden Legend tells it, a city in Libya has a lake beside it in which a dragon lives, poisoning the air with its breath. The people appease it first with two sheep a day, then, when the sheep run out, with one sheep and one child chosen by lot, and no household is exempt. The lot falls at length on the king's daughter. He offers his gold and half his kingdom for her, and the citizens, who have buried their own children under the same rule, refuse. She is dressed as a bride and sent out to the lake, and George, a soldier riding past, finds her there and will not leave. When the dragon rises he makes the sign of the cross, wounds it with his lance and brings it to the ground, then tells the girl to put her girdle around its neck; it follows her back into the city like a tame animal on a lead.
The people run, and George calls them back with the offer that gives the story its point: he will kill the dragon if they will believe and be baptised. They agree, the head is struck off and carried out of the city on ox carts, and the king builds a church on the site, from whose altar a spring runs that heals the sick. George refuses the reward, tells the king to care for the churches and the poor, and rides on.