Gold, Frankincense and... Mer?

I take great delight in finding pagan or magical imagery in churches. On a cliff near where I live is a church that contains no less than two mermaids. Naturally it overlooks the sea.

These sirens are on a carved stone column, dismissively described as un curieux pilier in the church itself, and have an escort of bizarre and brazenly secular heads: sun burst faces, feather-hatted noblemen and a vomiting sailor.

But the mermaids of Varengeville-sur-Mer aren't merely a legend, they were actually seen in the sixteenth century, playing in the waves. Whether or not those gawping sailors were sick drunk on rum or had merely stayed too long in the sun doesn't matter. They must have seen the mermaids, or they wouldn't have been carved in the church now would they?

In the graveyard, in the company of minor poets and composers that only the French know, the cubist George Braque is buried beneath a mosaic headstone. Back inside, his stained glass makes the light of the sun a deep-sea blue where the mermaids are.



The church at Varengeville was founded by St Valery, who carried the first stones up to this cliff top despite the advice of the locals. Fifteen centuries later the magical place he began is making its way back down, as the cliff subsides and the stone mermaids wait for the salty taste of the sea.


I collect places like this. But I see no reason why I can't share them.