iH V J A,
^'■ A YALE UNIVERSITY
APR801909
THE
UfckARYr
RUTHWELL CROSS
by
The Rev. JAMES MCFARLAN
MINISTER OF RUTHWELL, 1871-1889
' Tire not to tellen
Of the Tree of Glory,
Where the Prince of Peace
Thol£d His Passion.'
From ' The Holy Rood: A Dream.
In the Vercelli Codex
SECOND EDITION
J. MAXWELL AND SON
DUMFRIES
1896
PRICE SIXPENCE
THE RUTHWELL CROSS—NORTH SIDE
THE
RUTHWELL CROSS
by
The Rev. JAMES MCFARLAN
MINISTER OF RUTHWELL, 1871-1889
'Tire not to teller
Of the Tree of Glory,
Where the Prince of Peace
TholI:d His Passion.'
From ' The Holy Rood: A Dream.
In the Vercelli Codex
SECOND EDITION
J. MAXWELL AND SON
DUMFRIES
1896
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
historical sketch of its period
The Runic Monument at Ruthwell dates,
according to leading archaeologists, from the
period of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. North-
umbria was one of the greatest of the Saxon
kingdoms ; and, although Dumfriesshire formed
a part of the kingdom of Strathclyde, the
country to the east of Nithsdale was frequently
under the supremacy of the Northumbrian
kings. The great King Edwin, whose name is
preserved in that of the capital of Scotland,
introduced Christianity into Northumbria in
627. Strathclyde may boast that it was not
indebted to Saxon kings for its first knowledge'
of the Cross, since it had received the Gospel
from S. Mungo about the middle of the sixth
century. At the same time it is clear that this
part of the country was specially influenced by
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
the religious movement which King Edwin
sanctioned, and which was carried on by the
followers both of S. Augustine and of S.
Columba, wherever the supremacy of North-
umbria extended. It was Ethelberga, Edwin's
queen, who brought Paulinus, of the school of
S. Augustine, from Kent. It was King Oswald,
the successor of Edwin, who brought Aidan, the
disciple of S. Columba, from Iona. And in
the actions of Paulinus and Aidan, and in those
of their immediate successors, we see at work
the twofold influence which made the Church
of Northumbria what it was toward the close of
the seventh century. There was an Italian in¬
fluence, and there was also a Scottish, or rather
a Scoto-Irish, influence at work in this early
Anglian Church; and traces of both these in¬
fluences are preserved in the Ruthwell Runic
monument. If it was Paulinus who converted
Northumbria, it was Aidan who founded the
ecclesiastical settlement at Lindisfarne, and
who consecrated Hilda, the royal abbess, in
whose service, at the Abbey of Streaneshalch,
on the Yorkshire coast, Caedmon, the timid
herd-boy, discovered his gift of sacred song.
And if it was such men as Benedict and Wilfrid
THE RUTHWELL CROSS 5
who brought the pattern of the ornamentation
on the Bewcastle and Ruthwell Crosses from
the Christian tombs in the Roman catacombs,
' The Lay of the Holy Rood,' part of which is
inscribed in Runes upon the Ruthwell Cross, is
as much due to the influence of the men of Iona
and Holy Island as to that of the men of Kent.
The date of the Bewcastle Cross is determined
by its bearing the name of Alchfrid, the son of
Oswy, who held supremacy over the greater
part of Britain, and who, like his brother Oswald,
had been trained at Iona. This Alchfrid, how¬
ever, decided in favour of the Roman party at
the Synod of Whitby, and became the patron
of Wilfrid, whose hand may have sketched his
costly monument sometime about the year 670,
when Ecgfrith became King of Northumbria.
Under King Ecgfrith, again, the chief spiritual
influence emanated from the devoted Cuthbert,
whom we find successively at Melrose, Holy
Island, and Carlisle, when that city and its
neighbourhood, including the Dumfriesshire
part of Strathclyde, were possessions of the
see of Lindisfarne. It is to this period (670-
700), when Northumbria stretched from sea to
sea—from Whitby to Morecambe Bay, from
6 THE RUTHWELL CROSS
Holy Island to the Solway—that the Ruthwell
Cross is held to belong. The devotion of S.
Cuthbert, the religious zeal of Bishop Wilfrid,
and his love of art, the poetic fervour of Csedmon
and Cynewulf, all tended to render the closing
decades of the seventh century specially great
in the history of Northumbria. No greater
time was in store for the kingdom, and the art
which is shown on the Bewcastle, Hexham, and
Ruthwell pillars disappeared from it during the
struggles which preceded its submission to
Ecgberht in 827, when, along with the other
kingdoms of the Heptarchy,-Northumbria was
merged in the kingdom of England.
^ "5{5" ^ ^
So striking is the similarity in the figures and
in the scroll-work on the Bewcastle and Ruth¬
well pillars, that it is impossible to doubt that
they belong to the same period ; and, while the
value of the former chiefly lies in its being a
memorial to Prince Alchfrid, the son of* Oswy
and the patron of Wilfrid, the supreme interest
of the Ruthwell Cross rests in its Christian
inscriptions, and especially in its Runic legends
round the vine scroll-work on its sides.
THE RUTHWELL CROSS—WEST AND SOUTH SIDES
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
description of the cross
The Monument, as it now stands in Ruthwell
Church, is (including the new cross-beam which
the Rev. Dr. Duncan provided in 1823) 18 feet
in height. Its base, which bears on one face
a rudely-formed Latin cross, is sunk about 8
inches in the ground. It is not so symmetri¬
cal as the Bewcastle shaft. About the cross¬
beam it has a stunted appearance, which sug¬
gests that it -may originally have been a ' wheel'
cross, and higher than it now is.
In the panel on the face towards the south
immediately above the Latin cross on the base,
the subject is the Annunciation, the angel
Gabriel appearing unto Mary: the inscription
is from the Vulgate, S. Luke i. 28 : ' ingressus
angelus' ('the angel having come in')—are
the only words now distinguishable.
The next subject is, 'Jesus healing the man
born blind': the inscription is from S. John ix.
i. : ' et praeteriens [jesus] vidit [hominem
caecum] a nativitate' ('and Jesus passing
saw a man blind from his birth'),—et sanavit
eum ab infirmitate' (' and healed him from
his infirmity'), not in the Vulgate, being added.
8 THE RUTHWELL CROSS
Above, there is a representation of ' the
woman which was a sinner,' anointing the feet
of Christ: the words are from S. Luke vii. 37,
38: ' ATTULIT ALABASTRUM UNGUENTI : ET
STANS RETRO SECUS PEDES EJUS LACRIMIS
COEPIT RIGARE PEDES EJUS, ET CAPILLIS
CAPITIS SUI TERGEBAT' (' she brought an
alabaster box of ointment, and standing be¬
hind, with tears began to wash His feet, and
with the hairs of her head did wipe them').
This forms the main panel on the southern
face. Above it is the Salutation between
Mary and Elizabeth. The Latin letters are
doubtless from the Vulgate of S. Luke, but
they are nearly obliterated. This last subject
is worked on the narrower part of the pillar,
which is of red sandstone, and not, like the
principal part of the shaft, of grey sandstone.
, Again, where the stone curves inwards to the
cross-beam, there is an archer pointing his
arrow upwards.
The top-stone bears on this face a human
figure and a bird: S. John, and his sign—the
Eagle. The inscription, which is partly de¬
stroyed, is from S. John i. I: 'IN PRINCIPIO ERAT
VERBUM' (' in the beginning was the Word').
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
9
On the base of the northern face there is no
work distinguishable, though apparently two
figures had been represented upon it.
In the first panel is, ' The flight into Egypt,'
much destroyed, but with traces of the words
' MARIA ET JOSEPH,' round the margin.
Above is a scene from S. Jerome's life of S.
Anthony. Paul the first hermit, and Anthony
the first monk, met in the Egyptian desert after
their long and lonely wanderings. A raven
brought them a loaf of bread in their hunger
and weariness. They gave thanks to God, and,
having broken the loaf, they sat down to eat it
under a palm-tree, and by a cool spring. The
inscription runs: 'SCS PAULUS ET ANTONIUS
EREMITAE FREGERUNT PANEM IN DESERTO '
(' S. Paul and S. Antony, hermits, broke their
loaf in the desert').
The principal figure on this face is in the
next panel. It is Christ, represented as usual
with a cruciferous halo, His right hand raised
to bless, His left holding the sacred scroll, and
His feet treading on the heads of swine. The
inscription is: 'IHS. XPS. JUDEX AEQUITATIS.
BESTIAE ET DRACONES COGNOVERUNT IN
DESERTO SALVATOREM MUNDI' ('Jesus Christ,
A 2
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
the Judge of Equity. Beasts and dragons
knew in the desert the Saviour of the world'),
from the apocryphal Gospel of the Nativity.
Above this is another figure with the feet
resting on two globes. It is crowned with a
small halo, and bears a lamb in its bosom. The
figure is supposed to represent S. John the
Baptist, with the Agnus Dei. Dr. Duncan re¬
garded it as an image of the Father. Only
one word can be distinguished on the margin
—' adoramus ' (' we adore').
Again, there are two figures as the pillar
narrows towards the cross-beam, but the subject
has not been discovered. The northern face of
the top-stone is of peculiar interest. Resting on
a branch, which resembles the work on the sides
of the Cross, and which may be designed to re¬
present the last spray of the interlacing vine, is
a bird—the Dove of Peace, it has been supposed.
But the legend in the margin is not in this case
in Roman characters. It is Runic, like the in¬
scriptions on the sides ; and Professor George
Stephens has deciphered its meaning thus:
' Caedmon me fawed' (' Caedmon made me').1
The vine tracery on the sides of the Cross,
1 See date 1889, p. 26.
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
intermingled with birds and beasts, which
devour the grapes, is the most beautiful part of
the workmanship. Some of the creatures on
the vine-tree resemble lizards, while others
have been conjectured as representing squirrels
or 'little foxes.' But the special interest of
the monument rests in the legends round the
clambering vine ; since it has been established
beyond a doubt that these are a quotation from
' The Lay of the Holy Rood,' an entire text
of which is preserved in the Vercelli Codex.
The Vercelli Codex, described by Professor
Stephens as ' an ancient, half-ruined skin-book
in Old South English, containing homilies and
poems,' was found by Professor Blume, a
German man of letters, in the library of a con¬
vent at Vercelli, in Piedmont, in the year 1832.
In translating one of these poems—' The
Holy Rood: a Dream'—Mr. John Mitchell
Kemble, the noted Anglo-Saxon scholar, was
struck by discovering certain lines with which
he seemed to be familiar. He had previously
made a special study of the Runes on the
Ruthwell Cross, and was the first in these
modern times to discover their Christian mean¬
ing. Now, in this 'ancient skin-book,' he finds
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
what he had found before upon the Ruthwell
stone. The characters which Professor George
Hickes described in his learned Thesaurus of
Northern dialects in 1703, as, 'Voces vere
runicce,, hoc est, mysticae et occultae,' had at
last uttered their hidden meaning ; the ' Rune,'
which means ' the whisper,' or ' the secret,' had
revealed its truth. The Ruthwell Cross was
not semi-heathen, nor the work of two different
periods of history, but a monument of the
palmy days of the Christian Kingdom of North-
umbria, a memorial of the faith of S. Wilfrid
and the Abbess Hilda, and a record of the sacred
verse of some still unknown Saxon minstrel.
Who the author of the Runic poem may
have been remained uncertain, and Kemble
inclined to the opinion that ' The Holy Rood'
was of later date than the seventh century.
In 1856, the Rev. D. H. Haigh, an excellent
archaeologist, made new and accurate casts of
the Cross, and especially of the top-stone, which
had hitherto been neglected, though the Runes
on it had been shown in the engraving by
Adam de Cardonnel in 1789. The results of
Haigh's work led him to conjecture that the
author of the poem was Cczdmon.
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
Kemble acknowledged the value of Haigh's
casts in his preface to his translation of the
poem, published by the JElfric Society in this
same year. But he died in the spring of 1857,
and his opinion regarding the Runes on the
top-stone has thus been lost.
Haigh carefully compared the Ruthwell and
the Bewcastle monuments, and was of opinion
that they were not only of the same period, but
the work of the same artist. He also concluded
that there was no one living at the time of their
erection who could have composed the Runic
verses on the Ruthwell monument save Csed-
mon.
It was left to Professor George. Stephens of
Copenhagen, however, to discover the signifi¬
cance of the Runes on the top-stone. A com¬
parison of the plate of Adam de Cardonnel,
engraved for the Vetusta Monumenta of the
Society of Antiquaries, London, in 1789, with
Haigh's cast, and with tracings by the Rev. J.
Maughan of Bewcastle, led Stephens to the
conclusion that Caedmon is the author of the
Runic verses on the Cross; 'Caedmon me fawed '
being the true rendering of the Runes on the
top-stone.
A 3
i4 THE RUTH WELL CROSS
In his elaborate and beautiful work on the
Ruthwell Cross, published in 1866, Professor
Stephens clearly unfolds this view, and he ably
defends the same in his Studies on Northern
Mythology, published in 1883. By his kind
permission his translation of the Runes on the
Cross is here given. As in a dream, the poet
hears the Cross—'the Saviour's Tree'—relate
the story of Christ's Passion :—
East side— ' Girded Him then
God Almighty,
When He would
Step on the gallows
Fore all mankind,
Mindfast, fearless.
Bow me durst I not;
(Rood was I reared now,)
Rich King heaving,
The Lord of Light-realms ;
Lean me I durst not.
Us both they basely mocked and handled,
Was I there with blood bedabbled,
Gushing grievous from (His dear side
When His ghost He had up-rendered).
* * * *
West side— Christ was on Rood-Tree.
But fast, from afar,
His friends hurried,
Athel to the sufferer. (To aid their Atheling.)1
Everything I saw.
1 i.e. Hero.
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
i5
Sorely was I
With sorrows harrowed,
(Yet humbly) I inclined
(To the hands of His servants,)
(Striving with might to aid them).
With streals [shafts] was I all wounded.
Down laid they Him Limb-weary.
O'er His lifeless head then stood they,
Heavily gazing at Heaven's (Chieftain).'
The words in brackets are supplied from the
Vercelli Codex} The poem is in the language
of a warlike age, and is partly expressed in
heathen nomenclature.
In the poet's fancy of the Sorrowing Tree,
there seems also to be a reminiscence of the
myth of Balder, at whose death all trees and
plants, save the mistletoe, wept. In the part
of the poem which intervenes between the two
parts quoted above, the words occur
' Gloomy and swarthy
Clouds had covered
The corse of the Wald'en (Prince),
O'er the sheer shine-path
Shadows fell heavy,
Wan neath the welkin.
Wept all creation,
Wailed the fall of their king.'
1 From Thorpe's translation of the ' Dream ' in Cooper's
Report on Fcedera.
16 THE RUTH WELL CROSS
Afterwards the Cross itself stoops in pity to
suffer the ' Hilde-rinks' (brave men)—Joseph
of Arimathaea and his friends, to receive the
lifeless form of their 'Atheling,' as it 'stood
there streaming with blood-drops, with streals
all wounded.'
But if the phraseology, and even the thought-
form of the poem are mythic, the spirit of the
' Dream' is essentially Christian. It breathes
of Calvary, — of the anguish, and of the
triumph ; and the dreamer, awaking in his
' humble homestead,' 'filled with flame-thoughts,'
exclaims:—
' Now the hope of my life
Is—that Tree of Triumph
Ever to turn to,
I alone, oftener
Than all men soever
Magnifying its Majesty.
Mighty my will is
To cleave to the Crucified :
My claim for shelter
Is right to the Rood.'
So we leave him 'gladly longing' . . . 'till
the Lord's Cross-Tree shall call and fetch him
from the coils of this care-world to the City
Celestial.'
THE RUTHWELL CROSS 17
The ' Dream' opens with a vision of the
'Marvellous-Tree' gleaming with light, glitter¬
ing with gold, and sparkling with ' fairest gem-
stones,' while—
' All the seraphs beheld it wistful,
Angel-hosts of endless beauty.'
And when the Tree has told its tale of
anguish, the poem closes in a strain of sublime
hope, and describing the splendid 'on-march'
of the victorious Son with His ' ghostly legions,'
—the multitudes of the redeemed, to His ' old
home-halls' in ' God's high kingdom.'
'THROUGH THE CROSS EACH CHRISTIAN
MAY REACH THE KINGDOM ;
SOAR MAY EACH SOUL
FROM EARTH SKYWARD,
IF TO WUN WITH THE WALDEND 1
SHE WILLETH RIGHTLY.'
1 ' If to dwell with the Prince.'
18 THE RUTHWELL CROSS
DATES OF INTEREST IN THE HISTORY
OF THE CROSS
A.D.
670. The Bewcastle Monument, supposed to be a com¬
panion pillar to the Ruthwell Cross,,erected in
memory of Alchfrid, Prince, or King of Deira
under Oswy.
670. Ecgfrith, whose name is on the Bewcastle Monu¬
ment, as a mourner, King of Northumbria.
680. Death of the Abbess Hilda. Csedmon at Stre-
aneshalch. Wilfrid, ' the kingly bishop of the
Northumbrians,' returned from Rome. The Cross
probably erected.
685. S. Cuthbert at Carlisle. Ecgfrith slain in battle
with the Picts at Nectansmere.
687. S. Cuthbert died in 'the Isle of Fame.'
709. S. Wilfrid died ; buried at Ripon. The Venerable
Bede writing his history at Jarrow. Northumbria
the seat of English religion and learning.
756. Fall of Northumbria.
Tradition holds that the Cross stood of old at
Priestside, on the Solway shore, and that it was
brought to its present situation by a team of
oxen, or by the angels ! and that a church was
built over it.
1640, The General Assembly convened at Aberdeen
on July 28 passed an Act anent the demolishing
of Idolatrous Monuments, as follows :—
THE RUTHWELL CROSS 19
A. D.
Forasmuch as the Assembly is informed,
that in divers places of this Kingdome, and
specially in the North parts of the same, many
Idolatrous Monuments, erected and made for
Religious worship, are yet extant—such as
Crucifixes, Images of Christ, Mary, and Saints
departed—ordaines the saids monuments to be
taken down, demolished, and destroyed, and
that with all convenient diligence : and that the
care of this work shall be incumbent to the
Presbyteries and Provinciall Assemblies within
this Kingdome, and their Commissioners to
report their diligence herein to the next Generall
Assembly.
1642. In the Index of the Principal Acts of the Assembly
holden at S. Andrews, 27 July, Not Printed,, the
Sixth Item is as follows:—'Act anent Idola¬
trous Monuments in Ruthwall.'
In obedience to this Act it was probably
thrown down during the ecclesiastical troubles of
Charles the First's reign, in 1642 or 1644, during
the ministry of the Rev. Gavin Young, who
allowed its broken pieces to remain within the
church, where they found protection for 130
years or more, in the old-fashioned earthen
floor.
1695. R is referred to by Bishop Gibson in his additions
to Camden's Britannia, published in this year.
1703. Archdeacon Nicolson of Carlisle1 gave an account
1 Afterwards Bishop of Carlisle, and subsequently Archbishop
of Cashel.
2o THE RUTIIWELL CROSS
A.D.
of it to Professor George Hickes, which is pub¬
lished in that author's splendid Thesaurus of
ancient Northern dialects.
1726. Mr. Alexander Gordon, M.A., published, his Itine-
rarium Septentrionale, in which he gives careful
engravings of the Cross, and states that 'it lies
flat on the ground within the church of Ruth-
well, in the Stewartry of Annandale.'
1772. Mr. Thomas Pennant of Downing, in Flintshire,
visited the monument on the 18th May of this
year, along with the Rev. John Lightfoot,botanist,
and the Rev. John Stuart of Killin. He describes
it in his Second Tour in Scotland, thus : ' After
dining at Annan we made an excursion to Ruth-
well, whose church contains a most curious
monument—an obelisk, once of great height,
now lying in three pieces.' He seems not to
have noticed the Runes on the top-stone ; but
the next visitor of importance did so.
1789. In this year were published by the Society of
Antiquaries, London, in the Vetusta Monumenta,
Adam de Cardonnel's plates of the Cross, with
description by Richard Gough, F.S.A., giving
'the Roman-lettered sides and the Runic-lettered
sides,' and also the inscriptions on the top-stone.
About this time copies of these plates were
obtained by the Icelandic archaeologist, Thor-
kelin, from which he, and after him another
Icelandic scholar, Fin Magnusen (in 1837), pre¬
pared their works on the Cross.
1802. The Rev. Dr. Duncan of Ruthwell found the
fragments of the Cross lying outside the church.
THE RUTHWELL CROSS 21
A.D.
He erected the two principal parts in the manse
grounds. The red-sandstone fragments were
discovered in a grave shortly before this.
1823. The erection of the pillar, with new cross-beam
and old top-stone, completed by Dr. Duncan.
1832. The Verceili Codex, containing 'The Holy Rood :
A Dream,' discovered by Dr. Blume.
1833. Dr. Duncan's account of the Cross published in
the Arch<zologia Scotica, with engravings from
his own drawings by Mr. Penny.
Also published in the same volume a Latin
dissertation on the Runes by Mr. T. G. Repp,
F.S.A.S., of the Advocates' Library: Edinburgh.
1834. Mr. Benjamin Thorpe, F.S.A., published his Ana-
lecta Anglo-Saxo?iica. Thorpe translated King
Alfred's Old-English version of 'Bede's Tale
about Caedmon,' containing the bard's first
song ; also, ' The Holy Rood: A Dream,' for Mr.
Cooper's Report on Foedera, which is the version
given in Stephens' monograph, and quoted above.
1840. Mr. J. M. Kemble, M.A., published The Runes
of the Anglo-Saxons, giving the true rendering
of the Runes on the Ruthwell Cross.
1842. Kemble finds in 'The Holy Rood: A Dream,'
the words which he had deciphered on the cross.
The Verceili parchment and the Ruthwell stone
have the same tale to tell.
1851. Dr. Daniel Wilson, in his Prehistoric Annals
of Scotland,, gives an account of the above
theories and discoveries.
22 THE RUTH WELL CROSS
A.D.
1856. Kemble's rendering of the ' Dream,'published by
the ^Elfric Society.
The Rev. D. H. Haigh, in Archceologia
SEliana, gives his theories regarding the age of
the Cross, and Caedmon's authorship of the
Runic verses on it. He made plaster casts of
all the Runes, including those on the top-stone,
which had only been represented previously on
the plate of Adam de Cardonnel.
1863. Haigh confirms the truth of his casts, giving the
Runes dn the top-stone, as by this time Stephens
had rendered them, ' Csedmon me fawed.'
These casts are now in the museum at Copen¬
hagen.
1866. Professor George Stephens, F.S.A., Copenhagen,
publishes his most valuable monograph on 'The
Ruthwell Cross,' which forms a part of his great
work—The Old Northern Runic Monuments
of Scandinavia and England. This is the chief
authority on the monument and its literature.
Stephens fixes the date of its erection about
680, gives a minute analysis of all its Latin and
Runic words, shows that the Runes belong to
the Old North English, or Northumbrian dialect,
and maintains, from his rendering of those on
the top-stone, ' Caedmon me fawed,' that Caed-
mon is the author of the ' Dream.'
1867. In The Sculptured Stones of Scotland, the Cross
has been beautifully treated by the late Dr. John
Stuart, F.S.A.S. His description and plates
appear in the second volume of his work.
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
A.D.
1873. The second volume of Councils and Ecclesiastical
Documents by Haddan and Stubbs, brought out
by the survivor, now Bishop of Oxford. In it
(vol. ii. pp. 52-3) there is a succinct account of
the Cross and its inscriptions.
1874. In his Altenglisches Ubungsbuch, Professor Julius
Zupitza gives an analysis of the ' Runic Verse
vom Kreuze von Ruthwell.'
1876. Mr. Henry Sweet in his Anglo-Saxon Reader,
Oxford, adopts the theory that Cynewulf is the
author of the Cross Lay in the Vercelli Codex,
parts of which are on the Ruthwell Stone.
1881. Dr. Joseph Anderson, Keeper of the National
Museum, Edinburgh, in his Scotland in Early
Christian Times, repeats the story of the Cross,
and gives a full description of it, with plates.
1883. Professor Stephens, in his criticism of Professor
Bugge's Studies on Northern Mythology, re¬
futes the theories of Bugge, Miiller, and Sweet
as to the comparatively modern date of the
Cross and the uncertainty of Csedmon's author¬
ship of its Runic verses.
1884. The third volume of Stephens' Old Northern
Runic Monuments is published with new proofs
of his opinion that 'the Ruthwell Pillar is a
matchless Northern monument—the finest Runic
Cross in the world.'
In the December number of the Magazine of
Art, the Rev. G. F. Browne, B.D., Cambridge,
gives a sketch of the monument, and maintains
that it dates from the time of Wilfrid.
24 THE RUTHWELL CROSS
Dates of interest to the special student might
be multiplied. In 1873, Dr. J. A. H. Murray, in
his Dialects of the Southern Counties of Scot¬
land, compliments Dumfriesshire in that it has
preserved to us in ' The Dream of the Holy
Rood'—inscribed in Anglo-Saxon Runes upon
the Ruthwell Cross—the most venerable speci¬
men of the language of the Northumbrian
Angles. In 1879 Vigfusson and Powell, in their
Icelandic Prose Reader (Oxford), look to the
Runes on the Cross as affording a rare example
of the old type of Runic alphabet. But the
works which should be mainly referred to are
those of Duncan, Wilson, Stuart, Stephens, and
Anderson.
The principal sources from which the present outline
is derived are the following :—
The Works of the Venerable Bede.
Dr. Jamieson's Ancient Culdees.
George Chalmers' Caledonia.
J. R. Green's The Making of England.
George Hickes's Linguarum Sefitentrionalium
Thesaurus.
Alex. Gordon's Itinerarium Seftentrionale.
Thomas Pennant's Second Tour in Scotland.
Dr. Duncan's Account of Ruthwell Cross.
Dr. Daniel Wilson's Prehistoric Annals oj
Scotland.
Dr. Joseph Anderson's Scotland in Early
Christian Times.
J. M. Kemble's Poetry of the Vercelli Codex.
The Works of Professor George Stephens,
F.S.A.
THE RUTHWELL CROSS 25
HISTORICAL NOTE
In the above outline the decipherment of the Bewcastle inscrip¬
tion given by Maughan, Haigh, and Stephens has been followed.
Probably there is some mistake as to the name of Ecgfrith being
on the stone, since, according to Bede and the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, and William of Malmesbury, Alchfrid, though the elder
son of Oswy, returned from banishment, and became King of the
Northumbrians on the death of his brother Ecgfrith, and only
died in 705, four years before Wilfrid. Green, however, regards
the Alchfrid who became King of Deira under Oswy as a different
person from the successor of Ecgfrith, naming the one ' Alchfrid'
and the other ' Aldfrith.' J. M'F.
FURTHER DATES OF INTEREST.
A.D.
1884. The Rev. Archibald M'Ewen, M.A., Dumfries,
and the Rev. Mr. Lukis, Wath Rectory, Ripon,
Fellows of the Royal Society of Antiquaries,
visit the Cross; and seeing how weather and
climate are telling on it, urge its being taken
again, and that speedily, into the shelter of the
Kirk.
1885. The first edition of this pamphlet published.
1887. The Ruthwell Runic Cross, Dumfriesshire, and
St. Ninian's Cave, Glasserton, Wigtownshire,
declared to be ' ancient monuments' under the
provisions of the Ancient Monuments Protection
Act of 1882.
The proposal to have the Cross permanently
sheltered, and protected under the roof of
Ruthwell Church, which was sanctioned by the
Heritors of the Parish, by the Kirk-Session of
26 THE RUTHWELL CROSS
Ruthwell, and by the Presbytery of Annan in
1885 and 1886, was carried out by the Rev.
James McFarlan, the late minister of the Parish,
in the summer of 1887. An apse was added
to the north side of the Church, by Messrs.
Campbell Douglas and Sellars, Architects?
Glasgow, and the Cross was safely conveyed
thither and set up within a few feet of the spot
on which it formerly stood.
The whole cost of the work amounted to
£300, and was met by public subscription,—Her
Majesty's Board of Works, on the advice of
General Pitt Rivers, H.M. Inspector of Ancient
Monuments, contributing ^50 towards that
sum.
At the back of the Cross-chamber a brass
tablet bears this inscription :—
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
Dates from Anglo-Saxon times : De¬
stroyed during the conflicts which
followed the reformation : lay in the
earthen floor of this church from 1642
to 1790: Erected in the Manse Garden
in 1823 : Sheltered here and declared
a Monument under The Ancient Monu¬
ments Act, in 1887.
1887. October 31. Ruthwell Kirk reopened for public
worship. The Rev. P. M'A. Muir of Morning-
side (now of Glasgow Cathedral) preached on
the text, ' This stone, which I have set for a
pillar, shall be God's House' (Gen. xxviii.
22).
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
27
a.d.
1889. The Rev. Professor G. F. Browne, B.D. (now
Bishop of Stepney), visited the Cross and spent
some time in examining the Ca>dmon me fawed
on the topmost stone. He found the mce fauoetho
as others have found it, but his minute examina¬
tion of the Ccedmon, letter by letter, gave him
Kedmon. This Kedmon mce faucetho, he
thinks, whatever it may have meant, must apply
only to the upper stone, which is about five feet
six inches long.
On this same upper stone he found the word for
' gallows' and other runes, which led him to
believe that the Cross has in this upper part,
where the runes are no longer legible, a further
stanza from the ' Lay of the Holy Rood,' which
contains the words,' This is no outcast's gallows.'
He suggests that this upper stone may have been
the original Cross, and that the great shaft twelve
feet high was added a few years later.
1894. For some time Major General Sir Robert Murdoch
Smith, . K.C.M.G., Director of the Edinburgh
Museum of Science and Art, had been anxious to
obtain a mould of the Cross ; and in July 1894, the
preliminary arrangementshaving been completed,
Italian moulders were sent from the Edinburgh
Museum to Ruthwell. Under the supervision
of Mr. D. J. Vallance, Curator of the Edinburgh
Museum, a perfect mould of the monument was
then obtained, from which casts were afterwards
taken for the museums at Edinburgh, South
Kensington, and Dublin, and for the Library
at Durham Cathedral.
28
THE RUTHWELL CROSS
A.D.
1895. cynewulf's Elene, a metrical translation from
Zupitzds edition, published by Jane Menzies,
Edinburgh. In her preface, the translator refers
to the German theory that the Ruthwell Cross
was erected by some noble lord of Northumbria,
as a memorial to the poet Cynewulf.
Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press