#saltire

Q: Why? A: I was bored :3 Q: Why is it so scuffed A: 1) i just like making scuffed shit 2) i did it in an hour and a half gimme a break Q: Is my photo safe? A: Yeah its all in browser no server or anything. idk why this is a concern unless ur like. putting the saltire on porn which like. Why Q: is it open source A: https://github.com/Afterlifepro/saltire-the-gays Q: Why is the repo so shit A: again: i did this in an hour and a half leave me alone Q: whats the stack A: astro, web components (ITS VANILLA JS SHUT UP ABOUT UR FRAMEWORK PURITY PEOPLE), typescript (yeah ik) and cloudflare (litterally as a cdn i coulda used neocities its just easiest w my dns) Q: did u make anythin else weird A: yeah dong files; theyre public rn (dong.vielle.dev) but still in a bad way rn so im not makin a full post till i get the code fixed Q: what do i do if i have more questions A: reblog or reply or smthn lmao Q: what do when bug A: make an issue on the repo (i can help if ur confused)

hi! since you said 'demon' in singular i assume we're talking about the the squatting creature in the middle? (on wikipedia it says that this one is the devil, flanked by two demons.) i can't say that it reminds me of any particular demon/devil, but it also doesn't look atypical to me at all. demons/devils in medieval art come in all shapes, sizes and colours, and to my eyes this one just looks like another variation of the recurring 'themes' of demon depictions. here's the devil on another pillar of the same church:

so, he seems to have fur, a tail, wings, some kind of claws or paws for feet, relatively human hands, spiked hair, spiky ears and a kind of half-human/half-animalistic face. all of those features are very common in the demon/devil depictions i've come across.

just as a random example, here are some demons from a 15th c. bavarian manuscript that share a lot of the same features:

(Berlin, SBB, Hdschr. 300, fol. 2r and 26r)

same goes for these two:

(Paris, BnF, Français 22971, fol. 28v)

the squatting position as well as the facial expression kind of reminds me of this depiction of the devil in the 'livre de la vigne nostre seigneur' (france, c. 1450–1470):

(Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 134, fol. 67v)

all of the illustrations shown above were created several centuries later than the (early 12th c.) saint-pierre pillars though, i should add. you would have to ask somebody else if you're interested in an art-historical classification of the st.-pierre devil.

EDIT: i focused on the devil's phenotype, but i just saw on your blog that you're actually interested in the x-shaped cross he's holding, which the (german) wikipedia article calls "a symbol of death, with a tilted cross and dots in the triangular areas". i also have a hard time finding other references to this "symbol of death" anywhere, but in this list of cross symbols the "schrägkreuz" (english wiki calls it "saltire, also called saint andrew's cross or the crux decussata") is said to have originally symbolized the crossed logs of a sacrifical altar (for fire sacrifices) and is thus found in depictions of the sacrifice of isaac and in depictions of the widow of sarepta/zarephath. there seems to be more information on it this in this lexicon:

Gerd Heinz-Mohr: Lexikon der Symbole. Bilder und Zeichen der christlichen Kunst, S. 177. Eugen Diederichs Verlag, München, Neuausg. 1998.

possibly also here? (also german, sorry)