St Margaret of Antioch, Virgin Martyr and Foe of Dragons
On this day Eastern Christians (who call her St Marina) celebrate the apocryphal life of Margaret of Antioch. Margaret was the daughter of a pagan priest in Asia Minor but was converted to Christianity by her nurse. Her beauty attracted the amorous interest of a local Roman official who, thwarted in his base desires, denounced her for her religion. Margaret suffered many tortures unscathed: an attempted burning, a twisting on the rack, being ripped with iron combs, a boiling and a spell in the innards of a dragon. The beast spit her out when the cross she was carrying irritated his digestive system. She was finally killed by beheading. Margaret is often portrayed emerging unharmed from the dragon and because of this is the patron saint of woman in childbirth and those suffering kidney stones. She was one of the saints who appeared to the young Joan of Arc.
The above illustration is a rubbing made from the brass plate commemorating Marguerite de Scornay, who was Abbess of Nivelle in Belgium from 1443 – 1460. The panel , the survivor of three after 1940’s bombing, shows the Abbess being presented to the Virgin and Child by St. Margaret of Antioch, her patron saint. Note the tamed dragon.