THOU THAT STANDS

Peeping around the corner of a south window is a skeletal head. Look carefully and you will see the curve of grinning teeth, grimacing to the left. Falling across the skull is the topknot of a shroud. There is an awful warning to be uncovered here.

As we can read on our early 18th century tombstone restored here, the message 'As I Am So Shalt Thou Be' was hammered home. This full-length skeleton, which appears in the tiny Welsh church of Patricio or Merthyr Issui, tells the same tale. Such morbidity suggests the ultimate reason to be good in the present life.

Death, of course, was a more than familiar visitor. And at St. Cadoc's here has been speculation that a fuller picture might lie beneath the lime wash. Other churches picture the cautionary tale of three kings who meet three cadavers whilst out hunting. Again the zombie figures warn that, even for the greatest, death lies in wait.