It's a universal voice for the voiceless, a global voice for anybody who thinks that they're oppressed or downpressed.

Hello, I'm Neil McGregor, and in this series of podcasts, I'm looking at objects to see how shared beliefs help shape societies.

In these programmes, we explore how different communities and different societies relate to their gods.

This episode looks at communities that have taken global gods and adapted them to local needs.

This is the BBC.

And upon this charge, cry God for Harry, England and St. George!

Shakespeare's Henry V, leads his troops into battle against the French.

Sir George wins the day, and Henry goes on to victory at Adjinkourt.

It's part of the foundation myth of English national identity, patriotically proclaimed

in the famous Lawrence Olivier film of 1944.

But 1415 was by no means the end of St. George's battle career.

On the 2nd of March, 1896, he was in the field again, this time fighting not for the English,

but for the Ethiopians, because he's their patron saint as well.

And he was helping them and their struggle against the invading Italians at the Battle of Adwa.

In a painting here in the British Museum, you can see St George in the sky, mounted on his prancing white horse,

spear poised to attack not the dragon, but the Italian colonial aggressor.

It's a wonderfully straightforward battle painting. No confusion is possible.

On either side, lined up in straight rows on the yellow desert sand, are soldiers manning field guns

or carrying rifles. Italians on the right, facing Ethiopians on the left, with a space in the middle

where there's some hand-to-hand fighting going on and a few dead bodies.

The Italians wearing khaki are all shown in profile, a convention in Ethiopian painting to denote the wicked.

The good are always shown full face, and so everybody on the Ethiopian side, dressed in colourful stripes,

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