Margaret (St.)

In Christian art she is represented as a young woman of great beauty, bearing the martyr’s palm and crown, or with the dragon as an attribute. Sometimes she is delineated as coming from the dragon’s mouth, for the legend says that the monster swallowed her, but on making the sign of the cross he suffered her to quit his maw.

St. Margaret and the dragon. Olybʹius, Governor of Antioch, captivated by the beauty of St. Margaret, wanted to marry her, and, as she rejected him with scorn, threw her into a dungeon, where the devil came to her in the form of a dragon. Margaret held up the cross, and the dragon fled.

St. Margaret is the patron saint of the ancient borough of Lynn Regis, and on the corporation seal she is represented as standing on a dragon and wounding it with the cross. The inscription of the seal is “Svb Margareta Teritur Dbaco Stat Cruce LÆTa.”