This page is big! If it fails to load fully, please click Refresh on your browser menu.
It's fully loaded when you see the purple menu bar at the foot of the page.

reetings from Australia. 

Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.

First time here?  See the Index for How it works

Celebrate each and every day with a free subscription to the daily ezine. You can apply by form or send a blank email. Read what the 'Almaniacs' (members) say about Wilson's Almanac.

I request your support if this website pleases and informs you, as this is my livelihood. Thank you, from the bottom of my fridge. 

Inquiries from publishers are welcome, but, dear reader, please don't use my work without my written permission. If I've inadvertently used something of yours that you consider not to fall under the fair use doctrine, please tell me and I'll remove it.

Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

Pip Wilson

Our news on your homepage (that is, if you use My Yahoo, which we recommend for your start-up page)

Carpe diem! 23 Yesterday | Tomorrow | Search Open links in a New Window

Today is

  On St. George's Day, which is the modern equivalent of the Parilia, Southern Slavonian peasants crown their cows with wreaths of flowers … in the evening the wreaths are taken from the cows and fastened to the door of the cattle-stall, where they remain throughout the year till the next St. George's Day. With the offerings (Ovid, IV. 745) and the prayer that accompanied them at the Parilia we may compare the ritual which herdsmen in the Highlands of Scotland used to observe and the prayers which they used to utter at Beltane, the festival which is the Celtic analogue of the Italian Paralia … In this (i.e. Pennant's) account of the Beltane festival the spilling of the caudle (composed partly of milk) on the ground answers to the offering of milk to Pales, and the Highland herdsman's prayer to the being who preserved his flocks and herds corresponds to the prayer which the Italian shepherd addressed to Pales, as we learn from the following verses of Ovid. Tibullus tells us that it was his wont to purify his shepherd every year and to sprinkle Pales with milk, referring no doubt to the libation of milk to the goddess at the Parilia. Perhaps Ovid's expression, "when the viands have been cut up", is explained by the Beltane custom, described by Pennant, of breaking a cake of oatmeal in pieces and throwing the bits over the shoulder as offerings to the 88 preservers or destroyers of the flocks and herds. Among the viands so cut up at the Parilia were no doubt included the millet cakes mentioned by Ovid in a previous line. These the Italian shepherd, like the Highland herdsman, may have broken and thrown over his shoulder as an offering to Pales. Certainly the cakes were an important part of the festival.
Sir James George Frazer (1854 - 1941), The Golden Bough, 1922, pp 411 - 415

St George cries "Go!"
St Mark [April 25] cries "Hoe!"
Traditional English proverb (don't blame me, I didn't write it); today is the feast day of St George, patron saint of England

If on St George's day the birch leaf is the size of a farthing, on the feast of our Lady of Kazan you will have corn in the barn.
Traditional Russian proverb

At St George the meadow turns to hay.
Traditional English proverb

When on St George rye will hide a crow, a good harvest may be expected.
Traditional English proverb

Saint George he was for England
Saint Denis was for France.
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Old English ballad

When many hardy Strokes he'd dealt,
  And could not pierce his Hide,
He run his Sword up to the Hilt,
  In at the Dragon's Side;
By which he did his life destroy,
  Which cheer'd the drooping King;
This caus'd an universal Joy,
  Sweet Peals of Bells did ring.
'Seven Champions of Christendom', an old English ballad

Sound, drums, and trumpets, bold and cheerfully,
God and St George, Richmond and victory.
William Shakespeare, born on April 23, 1564; Richmond, in Richard III

Advance our standards, set upon our foes,
Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!
Upon them!
William Shakespeare; Richard, in Richard III

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!
William Shakespeare; Hamlet

Bonfires in France I am forthwith to make
To keep our great St George's feast withal!
William Shakespeare; Henry VI

To save a Maid, St George the dragon slew
A pretty tale, if all is told be true
Most say, there are no Dragons, and 'tis said
There was no George: pray God there was a Maid.
John Aubrey, Remains of Gentilism, 1688

I came, I saw, God conquered.
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, after the Battle of Muhlberg, April 23, 1547

I believe that these works of Turner's are at their first appearing as perfect as those of Phidias or Leonardo, that is to say, incapable of any improvement conceivable by human mind.
John Ruskin (1819 - 1900), English poet, on JMW Turner, English painter, born on April 23, 1775

Turner's temperament was audacious, self-centered, self-reliant, eager for success and fame, yet at the same time scorning public opinion—a paradox often found in the artistic mind of the first class; silent always—with a bitter silence, disdaining to tell his meaning when the critics could not perceive it.
Elbert Hubbard on JMW Turner   Source

God bless you! Is that you, Dora?
Last words of William Wordsworth, Poet Laureate, who died on April 23, 1850

I like America to some extent. Take the Japanese for instance. They are complicated and tend to be reserved in expressing themselves. Sometimes, it is difficult for me to understand them. Americans are simple and clear. They are charming people. You will understand how good an individual American is. What I am not satisfied with America is that the nation cannot control the government and economy. Only a handful of people have the power to control the country.
Michael Moore, American documentary film maker, born on April 23, 1954

I don't compromise my values and I don't compromise my work. That's why I've been kicked from one network to the next: I won't give in.
Michael Moore

I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us. They're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction, yet we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape, or the fiction of orange alerts. We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much.
Michael Moore; upon accepting the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, March 23, 2003, the Kodak Theater, Hollywood, California (see 2001 below)

The media, the corporations, the politicians ... have all done such a good job of scaring the American public, it's come to the point where they don't need to give any reason at all.
Michael Moore; Bowling for Columbine

Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably a tool of coercion, brainwashing, and manipulation. Television induces a trance state in the viewer that is the necessary precondition for brainwashing. As with all other drugs and technologies, television's basic character cannot be changed; television is no more reformable than is the technology that produces automatic assault rifles.
Terence McKenna, American psychonaut; see TV Turnoff Week, below

More TV quotes:

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.
John Lennon

I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.
Orson Welles

Television is designed to arouse the most perverse, sadistic, acquisitive drives. I mean, a child's television program is a real vision of hell, and it's only because we are so used to these things that we pass them over. If any of the people who have had visions of hell, like Virgil or Dante or Homer, were to see these things it would scare them into fits.
Kenneth Rexroth, American poet

I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence, There's a knob called brightness, but it doesn't work.
Eugene P Gallagher

Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.
Mariah Carey did not say this. See Snopes.

When I was a child, there were times when we had to entertain ourselves. And usually the best way to do that was to turn on the TV.
Jack Handey, American comedian

They call television a medium. That's because it is neither rare nor well done.
Ernie Kovacs, American comedian

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
Rod Serling, TV producer and director of The Twilight Zone

The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness.
Eric Sevareid, 'The Press and the People', television program, 1959

The marvels – of film, radio, and television – are marvels of one-way communication, which is not communication at all.
Milton Mayer

While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.
Lee De Forest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926

I do not believe television will come to stay until the picture shown is sufficiently larger, cleaner and more detailed to permit a family of five to see what is going on, without exerting any great amount of effort on their part.
L Waters Milbourne, WCAO Baltimore, US, 1944

Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
Darryl F Zanuck, President, 20^th Century Fox, 1946

Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine.
Rex Lambert, The Listener, Editorial, 1936

Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan.
Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948

Television? No good will come of this device. The word is half Greek and half Latin.
CP Scott, 1846 - 1932

Television in the home is now technically feasible. The difficulties confronting this difficult and complicated art can only be solved from operating experience, actually serving the public in their homes.
David Sarnoff, RCA, October 1938

The average American family hasn't time for television.
The New York Times, 1939

On September 10, half the world was already living, if one can call it that, on less than $2 a day, with a fifth surviving on half of that. Thirty thousand children were already dying needless deaths daily. Inequality is exploding both within and among nations, and perhaps contrary to the poor of the nineteenth century, today's poor know they are poor. The plausible fantasies of Western television constantly remind them of their own failure to capture the material rewards of modernity.
Susan George of the Transnational Institute

Channel One, an advertiser-sponsored school television program, beams its news and ads for candy bars, fast food, and sneakers directly into the classroom for twelves minutes a day in more than 12,000 schools. In exchange for a satellite dish and video equipment, for each classroom, the school must agree that Channel One will be shown on at least 90 percent of school days to 90 percent of the children. Teachers are not allowed to interrupt the show or turn it off.
David C Korten, When Corporations Rule the World

Our grasping arms are being crammed with the produce of an age of abundance, our eagerness to grasp being more than matched by the zeal of the people who shower such produce upon us. Abundance in the West has become a menace threatening to inundate us under mountains of television sets, houses, clothes, flowery toilet paper, cars, snowmobiles, books, furniture. In order that we may avoid being deluged, goods must be "kept moving." Advertising has been carried to lengths never before known. Our mailboxes, telephones, radios and televisions are channels for would-be sellers of merchandise who are hard put to get rid of what the manufacturers produce. There is nothing wrong, of course, with a proper distribution of goods and services. I am not talking about that but about the promotion of superabundance. We need food, clothing and shelter. Even abundance and comfort are gifts of God. But we are no longer his creatures accepting and distributing the goodness he pours upon us but the feverish and slavish worshipers of abundance itself.
John White, The Golden Cow, 1979

Consumer sales depend on the habits and behaviors of consumers, and those who manipulate consumer markets cannot but address behavior and attitude. That is presumably the object of the multibillion-dollar global advertising industry. Tea drinkers are improbable prospects for Coke sales. Long-lunch traditions obstruct the development of fast-food franchises and successful fast-food franchises inevitably undermine Mediterranean home-at-noon-for-dinner rituals—whether intentionally or not hardly matters. Highly developed public transportation systems lessen the opportunity for automobile sales and depress steel, rubber, and petroleum production. Agricultural lifestyles (rise at daylight, work all day, to bed at dusk) are inhospitable to television watching. People uninterested in sports buy fewer athletic shoes. Health campaigns hurt tobacco sales. The moral logic of austerity contradicts the economic logic of consumption. Can responsible corporate managers then afford to be anything other than immoral advocates of sybaritism?
Benjamin R Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld, 1995

So many sins against the poor cry out to high heaven! One of the most deadly sins is to deprive the laborer of his hire. There is another: to instil in him paltry desires so compulsive that he is willing to sell his liberty and his honor to satisfy them. We are all guilty of concupiscence, but newspapers, radios, television, and battalions of advertising men (woe to that generation!) deliberately stimulate our desires, the satisfaction of which so often means the degradation of the family.
Dorothy Day (1897 - 1980), The Catholic Worker, April 1953

The gospel preached during every television show is 'You only go around once in life, so get all the gusto you can.' It is a statement about theology; it is a statement about beer. It's lousy beer and even worse theology.
John Silber, president of Boston University quoted in Time, May 25, 1987

I don't know what's wrong with my television set. I was getting C-Span and the Home Shopping Network on the same station. I actually bought a congressman.
Bruce Baum

Heaven would be a place where bullshit existed only on television. (Hallelujah! We's halfway there!)
Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book, p. 234

More television quotes at Wikiquote

April 23 is the 113^th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (114^th in leap years), with 252 days remaining.
On the dating of items in the Almanac  Translate this page  Birthday star  Your birth day  Daily Everything  NNDB  Time/Date  Google
Calendar converter  Almanacs, calendars, time, dedicated weeks, etc  Almanac screensavers  On this day  Dictionary  I recommend
IMDB days  IMDB years  Wikipedia days  Wiki decades  Wiki centuries  Timelines  Conversions  Calendrica  Lunabar  Birthday calculator
When 'Source' links on this page move address or die, I might allow them to stay here, but the Wayback Machine might help you locate the original.

Pyre Festival, Syria, to Goddess Astarte (`Ashtart)

'Ashtart, commonly known as Astarte (also Hebrew or Phoenician עשתרת (transliterated Ashtoreth), Ugaritic 'ttrt (also 'Attart or 'Athtart), Akkadian ^dAs-tar-tú [also Astartu], Greek Αστάρτη [Astártê]), was a major northwest-Semitic goddess, cognate in name, origin, and functions with the east-Semitic goddess Ishtar.

Astarte, the consort of the god Baal, was of western Semitic origin and was worshipped between about 1500 BCE and 200 BCE, mainly by Phoenician peoples (in Lebanon and Syria, for example).

Astarte, or Ashtoret in Hebrew, was the principal goddess of the Phoenicians, representing the productive power of nature. She was a lunar goddess and was adopted by the Egyptians as a daughter of Ra or Ptah.

In Jewish mythology, she is referred to as Ashtoreth, supposedly interpreted as a female demon of lust in Hebrew monotheism. This interpretation is also inherited by Christianity. The name Asherah may also be confused with Ashtoreth, but is probably a different goddess.

The Palestinians and Jews knew her as Astoreth, who was mentioned in the Bible (I Kings 11.5):

For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 

 Israel's King Solomon built a temple to her near Jerusalem.

'Ashtart was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war. Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle indicating the planet Venus. Pictorial representations often show her naked.

She is associated in comparative religion with Ishtar, Isis, Aphrodite, Venus, Inanna, Aida Wedo, Branwen, Flora, Erzulie Freda, Oshun and Demeter.

Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

Vinalia priora, ancient Rome (Apr 23 - Apr 28)

The name of this annual festival derives from vinum (wine) and was celebrated with both wine and fire. There were two festivals of this name celebrated by the Romans: the Vinalia urbana or priora, and the Vinalia rustica or altera. The Vinalia were wine festivals lasting several days, honouring Roman god Jupiter, leader of the gods and god of the sky, and also Venus in her aspect as guardian of gardens, olive groves and vineyards. Today was the day for honouring Venus as the protectress of the hetairae, or dancing girls. The hetaerae entertained with music and dancing during dinners and feasts, and sometimes with sexual favours.

On April 23, the Vinalia priora, the wine casks which had been filled the preceding autumn were opened for the first time, and the wine tasted (Plin. H.N. xviii.69 s3). Wine of the previous season was broached and libations of the old wine were poured on the ground (as an offering to Jupiter) from old wineskins by the officiating chief priest. The people attending the ceremony joined in by pouring a libation on the ground like the priest, as propitiation, after which they were allowed to drink freely.

This was also the dedication day of a temple dedicated to Venus Erycina, the aspect of Venus served by sacred prostitutes on Mt San Giuliano, Sicily – she was in fact the Phoenician love goddess, Astarte (Ishtar). Ovid (Fasti, iv. 863) urged Ye wenches of the people, celebrate the divinity of Venus: Venus favours the earnings of ladies of a liberal profession. Offer incense and pray for beauty and popular favour; pray to be charming and witty; give to the Queen her own myrtle and the mint she loves, and bands of rushes hid in clustered roses.

The other Vinalia (Vinalia rustica) was on August 19, when the new vintage began.

Both Vinalias must have been holidays of great revelry. Wine-drinking games were commonly played at this time. You might allow yourself a glass or two of red or white today, and don't worry if you spill a drop.

See also Meditrinalia; Saturnalia; the Lênaia and the Dionysian (Bacchanalian) festivities

Roman festivals and notable days in the Book of Days    Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

Jurgi festival, in ancient Latvia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In ancient Latvia, Jurgi was a festival held on April 23. It was the beginning of summer, and the first day of outdoor farm work and shepherding. It was sacred to the St George and the god Usins.

Livestock are allowed to graze outside after this day. In the morning, their stalls are locked, with a riding crop and a knife hanging above them because Ragana and other evil spirits were on the hunt the night before. A black rooster was sacrificed to Usins, and then eaten by the man. The blood of the rooster was sprinkled around the barns and the ground bones were scatted among the rushes.

The horses were bathed and brushed, but nothing else, in order to bring good luck. They were not fed before the sunrise.

The farmers gathered under an oak and then let out the livestock, sprinkled with ashes so that bees would not sting them. Three pitchfork-fulls of manure was removed from the stones. Some of the men were given eggs, boiled with hot stones and thrown in shrubs or a knothole in an oak tree. The horses drank the water left over from the baking to help them grow strong.

Cows' snouts were washed in milk, bringing an increased milk production. A heavy dew on this day also increased milk production.

Wolves were warded away by tying a special knot with a sheep's tethers and repeating magical words, and by refraining from chopping wood on this day.

If possible, washing in the morning snow was good luck. Fires were not lit, warding away fires for the rest of the summer. Washing one's face on this day would cause fires and all washing was done in a river. Beer, bread and mead were laid out for the spirits.

Jurgi was often used for moving, preferably on a Saturday. The movers brought the rushes, salt, bread, eggs (thrown onto the house, then sprinkled on the pigs), wisp of hair from the animals, from their old house. Milk and brooms were not brought from the old house. On the way to the new house, salt was sprinkled on the ground, preventing forgetfulness. The new house was entered with the sun at the back and a book or bottle was left in once corner of the house, which was thoroughly swept, to ward off evil spirits.

At night, there was a feast, supposedly joined by Usins himself. Chicken, eggs and beer were consumed. Usins was offered soil, bread and bacon.

Alternative: Usini

Usini Festival, Latvia (various towns)

"Travellers of more delicate sensibilities may only want to take part in the early part of the Usini Festival, in which horses are taken to swim before sunrise, since this traditional agricultural celebration's main activities involve killing roosters, draining the blood into horse troughs, then using it to paint crosses on doors.

"This celebrates the arrival of ploughing time and the start of the "summer singing". Roosters (boiled) also feature in the ritual meals, which also involve eggs and, of course, beer."   Source

Find an error or dead link? 
Like to make a suggestion, or just say "G'day"?
Meet me at Corrigenda

Click stars for Universe today Cafe Diem! Our store Highly recommended: Folklore of World Holidays by Margaret Read MacDonald Golden Bough Folklore classic The Saga of the Volsungs: The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer   Dragonology   The Celtic Dragon Tarot The Oxford Book of Days The Ancient British Goddess Myths and Legends of the British Isles Folk and Fairy Tales The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Shakespeare Newsletter Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary   The Age of Shakespeare The Complete Pelican Shakespeare The Riverside Shakespeare William Shakespeare: The Complete Works (The Oxford Shakespeare)   Against All Enemies: Inside the White House's War on Terror – What Really Happened Power and Terror - Noam Chomsky The Pagan Prosperity The Triumph of the Moon Sabbat Entertaining The Pagan Book of Days The Rise of the Creative Class Celebrate the Earth A Year of Holidays in the Pagan Tradition Wheel of the Year The Trouble with Islam Brave Hearts, Rebel Spirits The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq Lady Godiva Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture Activists Beyond Borders The Book of Spells Spellcraft The Book of Saints The Encyclopedia of Saints Daily Everything Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable   To support this project Search by keywords for books, music, computers, software, home and family products and much more.     Search for posters What Would Jefferson Do? By Thom Hartmann The Price of Loyalty The Torture Debate in America The Culture of the New Capitalism Pagan Christianity Lawless World   The Great War for Civilisation By Robert Fisk The God Who Wasn't There A Question of Torture By Alfred McCoy When Corporations Rule the World Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism The Corporation Highly recommended DVD Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy By Robert F Kennedy, Jr The Skeptic's Dictionary A Dictionary of Saints Days, Fasts, Feasts and Festivals Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them 365 Goddess Adventures in a TV Nation Michael Moore Drawing Down the Moon Globalization/Anti-Globalization More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at   Cafe Diem! Celtic Daily Prayer Dude, Where's My Country? Photo of the day Mother Earth Spirituality Rich Media, Poor Democracy Robert McChesney Shamanism Women's Activism and Globalization   Voyage to Australia & the Pacific 1791-1793 Prehistory of Australia Aborigine Dreaming Rough Guide: Australian Aboriginal Music The Songlines Arnhem Land Didjeridoo Wise Women of the Dreamtime The Explorers Tim F Flannery The Survival of the Pagan Gods Click to promote  your blog or website  another excellent  way we do

Feast day of St George, 'The Great Martyr', patron saint of England; National Day of England Born c. 275 - 280. One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. (Harebell, Hyacinthus non scriptus, is today's plant, dedicated to St George, whose feast day this is.) King Edward III (1312 - '77) adopted St George as the patron of England, and today is the National Day of that nation. Ever since this saint supposedly came to the aid of English crusaders during their campaign at Antioch in 1098, he has been popular in England. At Stephen Langton's Council of Osney, Oxford in 1222, St George's Day was declared a public holiday. He was probably a Roman officer, a martyr who was tortured and beheaded c. 304 at Diospolis, ie, Lydda, Palestine, before the time of Constantine during the Diocletian persecution of Christians, according to hagiographer Alban Butler. The Greeks called him The Great Martyr. Pope Benedict XIV recognized him as Protector of the Kingdom of England and Edward III instituted the Order of the Garter under his name and ensign. "The chapel dedicated to St. George in Windsor Caste was built to be the official sanctuary of the order, and a badge or jewel of St. George slaying the dragon was adopted as part of the insignia. In this way the cross of St. George has in a manner become identified with the idea of knighthood, and even in Elizabeth's days, Spenser, at the beginning of his Faerie Queene, tells us of his hero, the Red Cross Knight: But on his breast a bloody Cross he bore,  The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,  For whose sweet sake that glorious badge we wore  And dead (as living) ever he adored." Source His legendary slaying of the dragon is an allegory for the triumph of good over evil, and is thought to have appeared as late as the 12th Century. We know the tale from the article on St George in The Golden Legend (Aurea Legenda), compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, 1275, ('Englished by William Caxton, 1483'). One day in Libya, St George came upon a swamp-dwelling dragon. The locals offered it two sheep each day in appeasement, but, having run out of sheep, had begun sacrificing humans selected by lot. When the lot fell on the daughter of the king, no one would take her place, but St George saved the princess by slaying the creature.  When he stuck the dragon with his lance, St George took the princess's girdle and placed it around the serpent's neck (which possibly is related to St George's position as patron of the Order of the Garter), by which the princess led the dragon into the city. George calmed the frightened citizens of Sylene, Libya, by promising to slay the beast if they would all be converted to Christianity and baptized. The grateful citizens then abandoned their ancestral Paganism and converted. St George may well be a version of the Greek chimera-slayer, Bellerophon, and the northern European hero, Sigurd the Dragonslayer, who is Siegfried in the Wagnerian opera. The legend might have origins in the story of Perseus, who defended the virgin Andromeda against the monstrous Medusa. Possibly, too, the legend of St Michael and the slaying of his dragon might have been conflated with the story of St George. "However, secular historians consider the roots of the story to be older than Christianity itself. They note that the origin of the saint is said to be partly from Cappadocia in Asia Minor, and that Asia Minor was among the earliest regions to adopt the popular veneration of the saint. The region had long venerated other religious figures. These historians deem it likely that certain elements of their ancient worship could have passed to their Christian successors. Notable among these ancient deities was Sabazios, the Sky Father of the Phrygians and known as Sabazius to the Romans. This god was traditionally depicted riding on horseback. The iconic image of St. George on horseback trampling the serpent-dragon beneath him is considered to be similar to these pre-Christian representations of Sabazios." Source In medieval times in England, today was a holiday, celebrated with horse races, mock dragon slayings and processions. This is why there are many English place names with dragon in them. By 1680, belief in George had dwindled: as was sung at the time, Most say there are no dragons; and tis sayd there was no George. In 1969, Saint George was dropped from the Roman Catholic calendar, and his commemoration reduced to a purely local observance. He is however still honoured as a saint of major importance by Eastern Orthodoxy. His feast date, April 23, remains the second most important National Feast in Catalonia. It is traditional in that autonomous community to give a rose and a book to the loved one. This has led UNESCO to declare April 23 as the International Day of the Book. St George's Day is also celebrated with parades in those countries of which he is the patron saint. St George is also the patron saint of the Spanish region of Aragón. See May 6 for St George's Day in the Eastern Orthodox tradition   Of saints and dragons St George was not the only slayer of dragons. St Sylvester, St Martha and St Michael were all depicted in church art as dragon killers. Jesus and the Virgin Mary are also depicted with dragons underfoot, and St John the Evangelist (John the Divine) charmed a winged dragon from a poisoned chalice. Indeed, there are at least 40 known dragon-slaying saints. The archetypal battle represents the triumph of positivity over negativity. Face your personal dragons today.