After a swim in the cold brown Allier, where we clung to the rocks in the shallow rapids
and let the water rush over us like trout, my friends and I donned sunhats and
flip-flops and strolled up to the 12th century church.
We were alone and we filled the hard silent cloisters with the chatter
and relaxed busyness that is natural when several families
who are comfortable in each others' company spend several days together.
The font, of which I know nothing, except that it is very old and made of two unrelated blocks of stone married together in an awkward union at the end of the nave. At the bottom of the bowl was a rather soupy puddle of water sitting slightly below a crusty ring marking its normal level.
An unusual variation of a Green Man capital.
Rather than the leaves issuing from his mouth, he and his colleague
link arms as their legs morph into vines.
link arms as their legs morph into vines.
Knowing I am a churchophile, one of the children asked me why there was a sculpture of an armadillo. " I don't know...show me" I replied and followed them towards the main alter, while furiously racking my brain for other examples of secular armadillos.
"No no, it's a lamb."
"But it's got scales!"
"Well, maybe, but it's the Lamb of God symbolising Christ on the cross" and I proceeded to give a highly inaccurate account of some of the Old Testament offerings- Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham and Isaac etc etc.
Armadillo of God
Unfortunately at the time, I could not bore them with my obsession for detail. Such as when a lamb is offered for the repentance of sin, God gets all the fatty bits (fat covering on inner parts, fat on tail, kidneys, lobe of the liver, etc) the priest gets the remainder of the lamb: the chops, rump, saddle, loin, shoulder, rack, scrag end etc and the repenitant goes without.
God definitely gets the short end of the stick.
I wonder how one can look at that wooly bundle and lick one's lips,
unless one is a wolf, of course.
image taken from the vegetarian unfriendly website
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cuts+of+lamb&client=firefox-a&hs=m7b&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&source=iu&imgil
unless one is a wolf, of course.
image taken from the vegetarian unfriendly website
What is this about? Why does your god care so much about armadillos?
ReplyDeleteWhat god wouldn't care about armadillos? Like you dear Nick, they are so peculiar and have such enchanting habits and despite their armor, they are quite vulnerable.
ReplyDelete