Lux Esoterica (Nifiluz)

Every gargoyle in the world — every stone monster-head that juts from a Gothic cathedral's roofline with a rain-spout running through its throat, spitting the storm-water clear of the walls — carries in its very name the memory of a French dragon, and of a bargain struck between a saint and a town. The word gargoyle comes from La Gargouille — from the French gargouille , the throat, the gullet, the gurgling water-pipe (the same root as gargle ) — and it names the flood-dragon of Rouen, on the river Seine, whose story this chronicle will follow to its strange and instructive end. La Gargouille was a dragon of the Seine: a great serpent-dragon dwelling in the river near Rouen, with a long neck, membranous wings, and jaws that gushed water — for its power was the power of the river in flood, and it ravaged the countryside by drowning : it spouted torrents of water from its throat to overflow the Seine and flood the fields and the villages, it swallowed ships and swamped boats and ...