Saint George's Day 2024

Saint George slaying the dragon
(AI image by Stable Diffusion)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session had Saint George's Day as its theme. Unfortunately we were still in the midst of a period of absence of some of our stalwarts and so just two singers met to celebrate England's patron saint.

Colin took the obvious, but more challenging approach of singing songs of Saint George, England and dragons. Some were funny, some were irreverent, but all were definitely on topic.

Meanwhile Simon took a broader approach, singing songs on those topics, but also incorporating some of Saint George's other patronages, including soldiers, shepherds, scouting, syphilis and skin diseases (all the "s"s in fact!).

Colin as MC started us off with John Kirkpatrick's Saint George. You may note that the linked recording isn't of John Kirkpatrick, but of Waterson:Carthy. The reason is simple: Colin, mostly like Waterson:Carthy, sang the version of the song from Kirkpatrick's Going Spare album, but all YouTube recordings I've found of him singing his own song it is the later version from his Make No Bones album.

Simon followed with Fathom the bowl (roud 880).

There were a four songs from the evening which don't appear in the YouTube playlist linked from "a selection" below. First came Raise the white dragon of England written by our friend Gary Hopwood and sung by Colin. This is a campaign song for recognition that George was not the original patron Saint of England and that according to Gary the honour goes to Edmund the Martyr. Edmund's cult flourished during the Early and High Middle Ages, and he and Edward the Confessor were regarded as the patron saints of medieval England until they were replaced by Saint George in the 15th century.

The next unrecorded song to be sung was brought to us by Simon from the pen of our friend Richard Gillion, the song being Puff and bold Saint George which has the dragon being a local chap who ends up in the service of the council.

Colin sang a Kipper Family treatment of the theme, The old Saint George (Chris Sugden), and the final un-tubed song was The perils of a carnivorous diet from Colin's own pen.

Simon finished off the evening with Rout of the blues (roud 21098).

This Friday's session will have no theme, so as usual that means any type of performance is just fine as long as it's acoustic.

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 2 of whom 2 performed)