You know how I love myths and legends and as today is St George’s Day, I’m going to talk about slaying dragons. The metaphorical kind, not that that makes them any less terrifying. There are many versions of the story of St George and the Dragon but here’s the story I know.
A dragon occupies the area around the spring outside the town of Silene. In order for the citizens to be able to collect water from the spring, the dragon must be distracted for a time. In order to do this, the townspeople each day offer the dragon a sacrifice. For a while they use sheep, and then when they run out of sheep, they have to offer a maiden from the town. Just as the maiden is to be sacrificed, St George appears, slays the dragon and rescues her, converting the town to Christianity in the process. What a guy!
So what does all of this have to do with anything? Well, I’m facing my own dragon right now. And it’s not the first time.
This week I’ll be selling the “Tales from the Moors Country” images outside of Yorkshire for the first time, in a huge four day event at Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds. It was the biggest investment I’ve ever made in a retail event. To say that I am a bit scared would be like saying that invincible flesh eating zombies are a bit scary.
I have four overlapping exhibitions in the next few weeks. And I need to make sure that I have enough work to sell at Sudeley to make it worthwhile for me. The cashflow implications are truly terrifying and could cripple my fledgling business if I’m not very careful. I’ve never been so scared about a business decision I’ve made.
But how could I turn down exhibitions and publicity when that’s exactly what my business needs? How could I not try to make the next step in my retail sale experience? This dragon stands between me and the next step in my business so I have no choice but to swallow hard, strap on my best armour and charge headfirst into the fight. Of course, as a peace loving vegetarian, I’d much rather sit down with the dragon for a nice chat over a tofu burger but as that’s not going to happen, slay him I must.
Luckily for me, it’s not my first dragon slaying experience. My first ever craft fair I was completely terrified and I don’t think I slept at all the last couple of nights before the event. It was only a small local fair but it was the first time I had offered my work for sale to the public and it forced me to face a lot of “stuff.”
“What if people hate the work?”
“What if they ask me why on earth they’d want a picture of me on their wall?”
“What if they ask me what it’s all about and I can’t answer?”
“What if I don’t sell anything?”
“What if I sell everything?”
Brain whirring, wheels spinning at a million miles an hour, there was a lot more to getting that stall ready than just printing and mounting some pictures. And when it was all over, I felt like I’d slain a dragon and had the battle scars to prove it. But the next week, I went back and I did another one. And another one. And another one.
Two weeks ago I sent out my first press release. I had been advised back in October that I needed to try and get more publicity for myself and the best way to start to do that was to send press releases to all my local newspapers, talking about my story and my new work. Up came the dragon again, scales shining, teeth dripping, ready to blast me with its fiery breath. As you’ve already guessed, I hid for six months, throwing a sheep its way every so often. Eventually, after some courage building experiences elsewhere, I sent out my press release, got my first piece of press and slayed dragon number two.
The moral of the story here? Every new experience in life is a dragon waiting to be slayed. Every step worth taking is going to come at you with breath of fire and, though you’ll feel the burn, you’ll come out the other side a warrior, ready for the next task. If you try instead to placate the dragon with the odd sheep, eventually there’ll be no sheep left and it will still come looking for dinner.
I’m not letting my maiden go without a fight so I’m picking up my sword and getting ready to charge. Never one to let an overly dramatic metaphor go easily, and never one to miss an opportunity for some amateur dramatics, I’ll end with this quote from a man who was born on St George’s Day. You might have heard of him.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’”
William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1