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Gargoyle
The word
"Gargoyle" shares a root with the word "Gargle"; they come from "gargouille", an
old French word for "Throat". A true gargoyle is a waterspout. An unusual carved
creature that does not serve that purpose is properly called a "Grotesque".
There seem to be three kinds of gargoyle, the original physically functional
(well, the rain's got to flow off the roof somehow, and shooting it out away
from the walls keeps the walls less damp and erosion off the foundations); the
spiritual influence of various possible kinds (many including: don't mess with
my church ye demon from hell we're here to protect it; or as a warning to
potential sinners; or as pagan symbols to encourage believers in the old ways to
come to church; etc); and lastly, the purely ornate (which strictly speaking are
"grotesques").
Most are a mixture of these, and it's sometimes a blurry line between them. Some
places, like Woburn Church, have both scary (looking down from the roof parapets
at the congregation) and scary-practical (shedding rain off the roof of the
tower). Some, like Carcasonne have largely ornate and pretentious ones. Many
gargoyles have some apparent symbolic meaning (like hairy hands), often hard to
discern. A few are charicatures. A few choice ones with bared body parts exhibit
the Celtic and later belief in rudeness as a ward against evil. Others are
little more than plumbing.
Curiously, almost all (of the old ones at least) are individuals, no two are the
same. And perhaps significantly although gargoyle-like roof drainage has been
found from Ancient Greek and Roman times, almost all of what we think of as
classic gargoyles are found in what were the last bastions of Celtic resistance
to Christianity shortly before or during early medieval times when they first
really appeared.
Gargoyles as a building accessory probably started off life either as plain
guttering or as totems to ward off evil spirits. They've obviously evolved a
bit. Presumably there was a paranoid group of people who were seriously into
scaring off spirits or other people, and had a strong penchant for artistic
plumbing. Who knows?
Some claim evolution has gone further and that there is a sub-type of "mobile
gargoyle", like the scary-functional type Constable Downspout of Terry Pratchett
fame (downspout being the name of the tube or channel through which they shed
the rain). Constable Downspout would (or will or does) move about roofs to watch
for criminal activity and report back to the City Watch, snacking on the odd
careless pigeon. Whether our world's gargoyles move is obviously less certain,
although some look as though they would on a moonless night if you just turned
away for a moment.
Source:
Gargoyles |
