Gargoyle – the word perfectly captures the leering, impish figures that menacingly loom from the high, darkened nooks of classic architecture. It’s disappointing, then, to learn that the word itself finds its linguistic roots in both the French and Latin words for “throat” (“gargouille” and “gurgulio,” respectively), and that traditional gargoyles are nothing more than devilish drainage spouts constructed to direct gutter runoff away from erodible stone edifices. And all the creepy, winged statues that don’t carry rain water? Those aren’t even technically gargoyles. They’re called “grotesques,” and serve only the counterintuitive decorative purpose implied by their name – looking repulsive.

I know. I just slaughtered your memories of the mid-‘90s afternoon Disney animated almost-hit “Gargoyles.” Fortunately, if Weird Things has taught us anything, it’s that humans aren’t capable of creating even the most utilitarian of monsters without first letting them rampage through the imagination. In other words, there’s more to gargoyles then just occasional trash clogs and death-defying seasonal maintenance.

The European history of gargoyles has roots in an old school folktale about a giant dragon named “Gargouille,” which flew around terrorizing France by spouting out powerful jets of water that crushed bones and demolished ships. Awesome, right? Well, savor it – this joint gets preachy. See, the local Archbishop got darn tired of putting up with the giant, murderous serpent-monster and ultimately defeated Gargouille by luring it to shore with a deliciously plump convict and then ambushing the beast with two perpendicularly overlaid index fingers that formed the shape of a cross. Yup. An epic battle. Dragon. Fingers. The Thrilly in Quevilly. Of course, the ad hoc tau tamed the unholy creature, which the Archbishop then led into town to be slaughtered and burned. Though Gargouille’s body was destroyed, its head and neck proved wholly non-combustible. As luck would have it, though, a certain Catholic church was in dire need of some effective drainage accessories, so the town rammed the gutter straight up the dragon’s neck hole and the gargoyle was born.

Nothing like the publicly displayed severed head of a God-humbled demon to get some asses in those pews, right?

At least, that’s the logic the church employed as more and more hellspawn were affixed to the walls of the newly constructed Catholic churches that were spreading like cold, ostentatious, Gothic wildfire across the cities of Europe. (Of course, animal waterspouts and free-standing grotesques had a long-standing history in the pantheistic and polytheistic cultures of the ancient world [basically, the Greek and Roman empires ripped off the Egyptians and the Catholics ripped off the Roman empire]. But that never stopped the church before.)

So the Catholics carved a bunch of gross statues, and the people of Europe filed dutifully into the churches. How the blank does that work?

Find out on Wednesday in a piece entitled “Gargoyles: the Original Noids.”

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