The church at Västra (West) Vemmerlöv in the province of Skåne, Sweden (diocese of Lund) dates back to the late 12th century. It was originally built in Romanesque style; but had some major renovations done in the 1850s. Around 1950, some old mural paintings inside the church were found again and were restored. Paintings in the ceiling and on the walls were common back in medieval times when most of the people visiting the church services were not able to read.
Besides Biblical motifs, this church also has some interesting paintings at the west end of the church (near the entrance) that refer to old fables and folk tales. Some of them involve foxes and geese. Symbolically, the geese represent credulousness, while the fox represents cunning. The purpose of these paintings was to remind people that sometimes the devil appears in disguise to deceive us. One image (on the left in the last photo above) also shows a pelican feeding its own blood to its young ones. In medieval art, this is a symbol of Christ.
Across the road from this church there is a café. It was closed in the morning when we first visited the church; but on our way back in the afternoon (to our hotel in Lund), we happened to be passing by the same road again - and then the café was conveniently open so that we could have our afternoon tea/coffee there, overlooking the church that had been our first stop the same morning.
(Map - see the post The Fourth Day from July.)
In the café garden there I also found a goose and goose-herd. (Domesticated geese are somewhat of a symbol for the province of Skåne. I'm not sure about nowadays, but at least in the past they were common on the farms there.)
Inspired Sunday #334
5 comments:
I like the simplicity of the outside of the church and the inside fits me to a T, still simple but it has the beautiful ceilings, I like this a LOT... that flower is gorgeous
What a beautiful old church, do lik ethe detail you have shown us
What a lovely area! I think my favorite part of your post is the stories about the paintings, and seeing them...the cunning fox, and the pelican plucking itself to feed it's babies blood!
I love the artwork best of all!
I was fascinated by the rails completely (so far as I can tell) surrounding the alter.
Coincidentally, and presumably irrelevantly, a flight of geese in this country is called a skein (which I though might be pronounced the same as Skåne but it would seem not).
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