ABSTRACT
The legend of Saint George killing the evil dragon is well known. It’s in books and statues and on coins. The legend is a foundation myth of English nation-building and British colonization and empire-building, including the colonization of nature in general and wetlands in particular. Chapter 8 calls for the decolonization of dragons as evil monsters and their remythification as divine monsters. It then draws on the theory of the history, politics and role of the Commonwealth as outlined by Cultural Studies pioneer Stuart Hall (Goldman and Hall, 1987), by the now largely forgotten Patrick Gordon Walker (1962) and recently by Philip Murphy (2018), none of whom consider Christianity as central to the projects of colonization, especially of nature and places such as wetlands, and decolonization, including nature and wetlands.
