The mystery of the wonky candles

St Claude's wonky candles

On one of our many church visits we managed to get into the church in St Jean de Vaux. Not an easy task as the thing is normally locked and the town hall is only open once in a blue moon.

This is a nice church and I am sure Cees will be able to fill you in on all the architectural high points, but I was fascinated by the candles. It had wonky candles, not just little a bit either, I mean REALLY wonky.

In the north chapel (for St Claude) I noticed that all the candles were leaning. As anyone will be able to see, they are leaning away from the window, so I thought that the sun had been shining through the window and melted one side slightly and the things had started to wonk.

Thinking about it now though, as this is the north chapel, no sun will come in through those windows, but we’ll put that aside for the moment.

Mary has them too

On to the south chapel (Mary) and interestingly enough, all the candles wonk TOWARDS not away from the window. However the candles are wonking in the same direction as St Claude’s - top towards the south. Not quite as dramatic as St Claude's, but a definite lean. The sun could come in through these windows, but would that bend the candles towards the light?

The church is full of them - what's going on?

In yet another chapel (not sure for whom) where there was no window at all, the candles all wonked the same way as well, less than Mary's and definitely less dramatic than St Claude, but the tops were happily displacing themselves towards the south. For completeness, the nearest window would probably have been to the west in this case.

Strange goings on I must say. All the candles wonk top towards the south no matter the direction of the nearest window.

Any ideas why?