St Mary, Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset. St Michael slaying the dragon
But there is something really interesting about when we celebrate St George and St Michael...The dragon killers...
Here's why:
Snake is a pure solar animal. It is in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and it is in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...I talked about it in my posts "Chthonic animal", "Enemy of the sun", "Letnitsa treasure"...
Which is why snake is one of the most common and the oldest solar symbols, symbol of the sun and specifically sun's heat.
Two very interesting objects from the 10,000BC Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site Körtik Tepe, located in the Diyarbakır district of Turkey. Thanks @MattSibson for the great info about early Anatolian sites...I talked about snake in Early Neolithic Anatolia in my post "Goat and snake from Körtik Tepe"...
Snakes are also found "flying" above the head of the Mesopotamian Sun god Shamash...I talked about this in my posts "Sun god from Tell Brak" and "Shamash playing with solar horse"...
And we find the sun god holding snakes, or having snakes for arms in Ancient Bactria too...This is 3rd millennium BC, Bactrian seal depicting the sun god (see heat rays emanating from his shoulders) holding snakes, symbols of sun's heat...See snakes, Solar animals number one, the symbols of sun's heat...I talked about this in my posts "Nude winged hero dominating snakes" and "Bactrian snakes and dragons"...
And according to Slavic mythology, dragon is just "an old snake", the symbol of the destructive sun's heat of the late summer which burns everything and brings drought...I talked about this in my posts "Letnitsa treasure" and "Dragon who stole rain"...
When I say late summer, I mean Jul/Aug, period of the year marked with a lion, Leo. Which is why Mesopotamians depicted Nergal, The God of Death, The Destructive Sun, as lion man...I talked about this in my posts "Winged superhuman hero" and "Angra Mainyu"...
Because sun's heat is strongest in Leo, is the reason why in Iraq, in Tell Asmar, people depicted dragons with lion body. But also with seven snake heads, one of each sunny, hot month of the old Sumerian summer...I talked about this in my post "Seven headed dragon"...
Oh look, dragon killers and princess...
Did you see the two Sumerian dragon killers, one at the head and the other at the tail of their 7 headed dragon? Sumerian summer, the time of dragons, started in Apr/May and ended in Oct/Nov...
Guess when we celebrate the two "Christian" dragon killers?
The beginning and the end of the "Old summer" are marked by St George's day and St Michael's day...At Serbian Orthodox church celebrate them on these days (according to the Julian calendar)...
BTW, in Serbian Orthodox church tradition, the beginning and the end of the "Time of Dragons", the hot sunny half of the year, are also marked (guarded) by Two Georges, Summer and Winter St George's day... I talked about this in my post "Two Georges"...
So don't worry. The dragon can't escape 🙂
To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...
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