Copyright: Creative Commons
photographer: Anthony McIntosh
A STATUE WHICH, THOUGH RAVAGED BY THE SEASIDE WEATHER, IS AS EXQUISITE AS RODIN'S THE KISS
When you're in Hastings, you'll see this sculpture (the work of Charles Wilke in 1875) in the garden at Sea Road. The woman leaning over the dead King Harold after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 is his beloved lover and first (common law) wife (joined to him in marriage before sacramental marriage became the norm), the beautiful Edith SwanNeck, with whom he had six children. (He later entered an official marriage of convenience, as royals often did, and Edith became his concubine.) Edith was the only person who could identify Harold's mutilated body, because she recognized marks on his skin that no-one else knew about. Edith was well-known not only because of her relationship with the king but also because it was thanks to her that the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham (a place of pilgrimage still popular with Christians of many denominations today) was built after the mother of God appeared to her and instructed her to build a replica of the house Jesus lived in at Nazareth. So this woman whose presence at Hastings (Battle) in 1066 was so important was also a mystic.
No comments:
Post a Comment