The grotesque in church art (1899) (14801316273)

Identifier: grotesqueinchurc00wild (find matches)
Title: The grotesque in church art
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Wildridge, Thomas Tindall
Subjects: Grotesque Christian art and symbolism Church decoration and ornament
Publisher: London, W. Andrews & co.
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto



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itsforbidden Satan coming into contact with the popular beliefin hobgoblins and fairies which were common in the oldheathen belief of this island, and so the sterner teachingwas tinged by more popular fancies. There is much truth in this, except that for the hobgob-lins and fairies we may very well read ancient deities, for theultimate effect of Christianity upon Pagan reverence was toturn it into contempt and abhorrence for good and bad deitiesalike. We can read this in the slender records of ancientworships whose traces are left in language. Thus Bo isapparently one of the ancient root-words implying divinity ;Bod, the goddess of fecundity ; Boivaui, goddess of destruc-tion ; Bo/ay, the giant who overcame heaven, earth and hell ;Bonders, or Boudons, the genii guarding Shiva, and Boroou,a sea-god, are in Indian mythology. Bossum is a good deityof Africa. Borvo and Bor mania were guardians of hot springs,and with B on Ijanus were gods of old Gaul. />orr was the * Mr. Rolierl Mann.
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SATANIC REPRESENTATIONS. 69 father of Odin, and Sure was Borrs sister. The Bo-tree of India is the sacred tree of wisdom. In Sumatra boo is a root-word meaning good (as in booroo). Bog is the Slavonic for god. These are given to shew a probable connection among wide-spread worships. We are now chiefly concerned with the last instance. The Slavonic Bog, a god, is met in Saxon as a goblin, for the boy who came into the court of King Arthur and laid his wind upon a boars head was clearly a bog (the Saxon g being exchanged erroneously for y, as in dags aeg, days eve, etc). In Welsh, similarly, Brog is a goblin, and we have the evil idea in bug. Warwick was a bug that feared us all. —Shakespeare. Henry IV., v., 2. That is Warwick was a goblin that made us all afraid.The Boggart is a fairy still believed in by Staffordshirepeasants. We have yet bugbear, as the Russians have Buka,and the Italians Buggaboo, of similar meaning. As with the barbaric gods, so with the classic deities,who equal