The legend de Sant Jordi and the rose says that once, in Montblanc (Tarragona), a ferocious dragon capable of poisoning the air and killing with its breath frightened the inhabitants of the town. The inhabitants, frightened and tired of his ravages and misdeeds, decided to deliver a random person to him every day in order to appease his anger. A few days later, bad luck touched the princess.
Sant Jordi and the rose
When the princess left her home to join the dragon, a knight named Sant Jordi, wearing shining armor, suddenly appeared on his white horse to rescue her. Sant Jordi raised his sword and stabbed the dragon, finally freeing the princess and the townspeople.
A rosebush rose from the dragon's blood, the roses of which were a red like no one had ever seen. Sant Jordi, triumphant, picked a rose and offered it to the princess.
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Sant Jordi was a Christian Roman soldier. For not having renounced his beliefs, he was martyred in the time of the Roman emperor Diocletian, around the year 303. One of the legends attributed to Sant Jordi, which quickly became the most popular, explains that a dragon terrorized the inhabitants of a village. To calm him down, they had to give him a lamb and a young girl, chosen at random.
One day bad luck fell on the king's daughter, who was brought before the dragon. Sant Jordi freed her in a miraculous way, killed the dragon and red roses sprang from the blood of the latter. The young girl, the king and all the people converted to Christianity.
Catalan kings often showed their devotion to Sant Jordi and asked for help to fight the infidels. At that time, countries as different as Georgia, England, the Greece and the Catalonia made Saint George their patron.
In 1926 was added the Day known as the book, which originally was a commemoration of the death of Cervantes.
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