The magician at Alveley Church Shropshire

Photo by Ian Popple                                                                                                 A possibly 16th century stained glass in this beautiful church which lies only half a mile from the Witches Cross, so called in folklore. presumably because witches once danced wildly around this cross, now called the Butter Cross, in order to attain an out of body flying experience. The fact that this saint or holy man (even Jesus?) is in magical pose and barefoot costume in a church, is because in remote rural areas Christianity and Paganism were equally accepted. The term pagan derives from Latin pagus meaning a local country dweller, hence anyone who was devoted to their local cult of pilgrimage to holy well, standing stone, sacred tree or grove and so on. These sites became Christianised but occasionally we find examples where the older pagan cult has survived, as in this case. Alveley lies very close to the River Severn, sacred to the goddess Sabrina. The river here flows more or less from north to south which in the northern hemisphere is especially hallowed because Mother Earth's electro -magnetic energy flows from north to south.
I struggle to make out what this amazing figure is holding. His crossed eyes are interesting, because in magic, crossing the eyes was a passport into an altered state of consciousness where we perceive the world is somewhat different than we normally find it. This figure is small in the original and even harder to view properly in the church itself, so it would be interesting to see what other people make of it.