St. Edmund the Martyr

15th century
St. Edmund's Church, Southwold, England

Ælfric's "Life of St. Edmund" says the king was tied to a tree and then killed with a large number of javelins. Painters and muralists pictured arrows instead, but neither arrows nor javelins would be a good choice for a stone statue set in a niche. This may be why the sculptor chose to portray the moment before the javelins started to fly.

Read more about images of St. Edmund.

Source: Alan Walker via this page at Wikimedia Commons.