e
earth, and the place thereof became a swamp.[447]

About St. George many stories are told, and still more ballads (if we
may be allowed to call them so) are sung. Under the names of Georgy,
Yury, and Yegory the Brave, he is celebrated as a patron as well of
wolves as of flocks and herds, as a Christian Confessor struggling and
suffering for the faith amid pagan foes, and as a chivalrous destroyer
of snakes and dragons. The discrepancies which exist between the
various representations given of his character and his functions are
very glaring, but they may be explained by the fact that a number of
legendary ideas sprung from separate sources have become associated
with his name; so that in one story his actions are in keeping with
the character of an old Slavonian deity, in another, with that of a
Christian or a Buddhist saint.

In some parts of Russia, when the cattle go out for the first time to
the spring pastures, a pie, made in the form of a sheep, is cut up by
the chief herdsman, and the fragments are preserved as a remedy
against the diseases to which sheep are liable. On St. George's Day in
spring, April 23, the fields are sanctified by a church service, at
the end of which they are sprinkled with holy water. In the Tula
Government a similar service is held over the wells. On the same day,
in some parts of Russia, a youth (who is called by the Slovenes the
Green Yegory) is dressed like our own "Jack in the Green," with
foliage and flowers. Holding a lighted torch in one hand and a pie in
the other, he goes out to the cornfields, followed by girls singing
appropriate songs. A circle of brushwood is then lighted, in the
centre of which is set the pie. All who take part in the ceremony then
sit down around the fire, and eventually the pie is divided among
them.

Numerous legends speak of the strange connection which exists between
St. George and the Wolf. In Little Russia that animal is called "St.
George's Dog," and the carcases of sheep which wolves have killed are
not used for human food, it being held that they have been assigned by
divine command to the beasts of the field. The human victim whom St.
George has doomed to be thus destroyed nothing can save. A man, to
whom such a fate had been allotted, tried to escape from his
assailants by hiding behind a stove; but a wolf transformed itself
into a cat, and at midnight, when all was still, it stole into the
house and seized the appointed prey. A hunter, who