This Is My Glasgow

I've always loved the quality of this Glasgow Coat of Arms on the front of Saint Andrew's Parish Church (and with the building datung fron the mid 1700s, it must be one of the oldest in the city), but what's with the troll at the bottom?

#glasgow #glasgowcoatofarms #sculpture #church #glasgowchurches #coatsofarms

Aug 25, 2023 at 11:34amWeb
Show threadBodhipaksaAug 25, 2023

@thisismyglasgow He reminds me of the wrathful protector deities you find in Tibetan Buddhism. These were older gods who were harnessed as guardians of a newer religion. Could be something similar happening here.

Also, the whole bird/tree/cold-blooded-animal arrangement is reminiscent of Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse myth, with an eagle perching on its branches and a snake at its roots.

Show threadThis Is My GlasgowAug 25, 2023
@bodhipaksa Interesting. Thanks for that. This particular coat of arms comes from more than a century before it was officially codified in 1866, so there may well be earlier elements and influences on it. May be in a parallell universe the troll would have ended up on the official one!
Show threadBodhipaksaAug 25, 2023
@thisismyglasgow Someone needs to write a book on the Gods of Glasgow. Until reading your posts I'd never heard of Father Clyde, for example. And that's despite having lived in Glasgow for many years. (The troll could be in there too.)
Show threadThis Is My GlasgowAug 25, 2023
@bodhipaksa That's a great title! And there's certainly enough of them carved on to Glaagow's buildings to fill a book. For a supposdly Christian city, it's rather infested with pagan deities of varioua descriptions!