Athanasius then speedily took
a great bowl, filled with a noxious draught,
and dedicated all that drink to the devils,
and gave it him to drink, but it hurt him not.
Then said again the magician, 'Yet one thing will I do,
and if that hurt him not, I will submit to Christ.'
He took then a cup, with a death-bearing drink,
and cried aloud to the black devils,
and to the foremost devils, and to the most powerful,
and in their names enchanted the fearful drink,
and gave it to the Lord's saint to drink;
but the fiendish liquor harmed him not a whit.
Then the sorcerer saw that he could not hurt him,
and fell at his feet, praying for baptism;
and the holy George straightway baptised him.
Then Datian became fiendishly angry,
and bade seize on the sorcerer, who had there believed in God,
and bring him out of the city, and instantly behead him.
Again on the second day the wicked emperor commanded
George to be bound on a broad wheel,
and two sharp swords to be set against him,
and so to be drawn up, and shoved backwards.
Then George commended himself boldly to God;
Deus in adiutorium meum intende; domine, ad adiuuandum me festina.
'Give heed, O God, to deliver me, make haste now to help me, O Lord' [Ps. lxx. i].
and he was then brought with this prayer to the wheel,
Then the heathen men turned the wheel savagely,
but it instantly burst asunder, and bent to the earth,
and the holy man remained uninjured.
Datian then became sad in his mind,
