Saint George and the dragon
The colleague Eduardo Mendoza has said, these days, taking advantage of the fact that writers have a microphone, that Saint George should be "the book day and that's it" because the saint in question "is not the patron of writers or anything like that". Furthermore, according to him "he was an animal abuser who surely didn't know how to read".
We have two unique traditions, in Catalonia, that are perfect in their conception: the Tió and Saint George. The Tió is a marvel of bullying. A log is forced to defecate by means of stick blows while being required the type of product it must expel. Sardines are red flag, as they have too much salt. Turrones, on the other hand, are green flag, for their flavor. Once the defecation has occurred, it is burned. Saint George's Day is an incredible festival where those who love each other give each other roses and books. The streets fill with authors and readers. Part, like all of ours, of a violent story. Saint George kills the dragon to save the princess. The princess is about to star in a cannibalistic apocalypse due to her incompetent father, who resigns himself to handing her over to the monster, committing an unforgivable crime of omission. Saint George, a monarchist to the end, is not interested in any of the other creatures eaten by the glutton, only in the blue-blooded one. From the dragon's red blood, by the way, a rose bush is born, which is what gives rise to the other very important part of the festival, apart from the books: the roses.
Perhaps Saint George was illiterate, nor should he have been a gardener, but I doubt he was an animal abuser. He didn't fight the dragon. He killed it in self-defense. Like wild boars, it wanted to eat what it shouldn't. In any case, illiterate or not, Saint George is our literary father. The novels most read by young people are those of romantasy. They have two fundamental elements: a "spicy" love story and dragons. Many dragons. It cannot be denied that if anyone understands dragons, it is we Catalans. Happy Saint George's Day.