Gargoyle

The Stone Statue - Gargoyle

Gargoyle. A grotesque carved human or animal face or figure projecting from the gutter, especially of Gothic buildings, used as a spout to carry water clear of a wall. The word Gargoyle is derived from an old French word gargouille, meaning throat.

In contemporary fiction, gargoyles are typically depicted as a (generally) winged humanoid race with demonic features (generally horns, a tail, talons, and may or may not have a beak). Gargoyles can generally use their wings(if they have any) to fly or glide and are often depicted as having a rocky hide, or being capable of turning into stone in one way or another, a reference to their structural roots. If they don't have wings, (like the one in the photo to the left), they will scale the building's outer walls and either walk the streets at night or they will go inside the building. Gargoyles are known to protect buildings from evil spirits.

There are many theories has to how and why medieval architects and stone carvers developed gargoyles. It is believed that they were used to ward of evil and to act as guardians of the church to keep the terrible spirits of evil away and were inspired from a passage written in the bible. Adrienne Mayor believes they were inspired by the skeletal remains and bones of dinosaurs, found by Greek and Roman paleontologists. Many gargoyles are similar to the legends and figures of the ancients Celts, such as the Green Man or Jack of the Green ... the god of tree worship. The Pagan artists who carved these were inspired by their culture and were the last vestiges of paganism from an age when god would be heard in trees and river plains. Or are they representations of deep rooted elements within human nature and expressions of man's subconscious fears or attempts to define or embody evils of the world into manageable elements.

Whatever their true origins these awesome visual images have been with man for hundreds of years and they still seem to catch and inspire the imagination of modern society. Maybe they do, indeed, have a spirit of their own.

A French legend that sprang up around the name of St. Romanus ("Romain") (AD 631–641), the former chancellor of the Merovingian king Clotaire II who was made bishop of Rouen, relates how he delivered the country around Rouen from a monster called Gargouille or Goji. La Gargouille is said to have been the typical dragon with batlike wings, long neck, and sprouts fire from its mouth. There are multiple versions of the story, either that St. Romanus subdued the creature with a crucifix, or he captured the creature with the help of the only volunteer, a condemned man. In each, the monster is lead back to Rouen and burned, but its head and neck would not, due to being tempered by its own fire breath. The head was then mounted on the walls of the newly built church to scare off evil spirits, and used for protection. In commemoration of St. Romain the Archbishops of Rouen were granted the right to set a prisoner free on the day that the reliquary of the saint was carried in procession.