220 Introduction 



at the other end of Alcfrid's grave.' He added ^ : ' That they [the 

 two crosses] belong to the seventh century cannot be doubted ; 

 they contain forms of the language which are evidentty earlier than 

 Bede's Death Song and Csedmon's Hj^mn.' 



1865. Franz Dietrich, believing that The Dream of the Rood was 

 written by Cynewulf, and that near the close of it (133 ff.) he had 

 particularly in mind, among the friends whom he had lost, King 

 Ceolwulf of Northumbria, who died in 764,^ assigned the Ruthwell 

 Cross to a period soon after this,^ but before 794, when the Danes 

 devastated Northumbria, and destroyed the peaceful conditions 

 necessary for the cultivation of the arts.'* Incidentally, he speaks 

 of two crosses at Bewcastle, which he refers to the same time^ : 

 ' In oppido Bewcastle duae cruces partim adhuc superstites sunt, 

 quae propter runas quibus praeditse sunt, ad idem tempus referendse 

 esse videntur.' 



1866. George Stephens accepted Haigh's view with regard to 

 the authorship of the poetic fragments on the Ruthwell Cross, and 

 further announced that he had discovered the name of Caedmon on 

 the cross itself.^ He believed the date could be fixed ' at about 680.' 



Of the Bewcastle Cross Stephens said ' : ' The man who slept 

 beneath it was ALCFRITH. . . . ALCFRITH was a pious and brave 

 prince, and is famous in history as the friend of St. Wilfrid. The 

 year of his death is not ascertained. But as he is not mentioned 

 among the victims of the Great Plague in 664, which canied off so 

 many of his countrymen, he probably died in 665 or 666. As the 

 tomb-stone was not finisht till the first year of ECGFRITH, his 

 successor, its date is about 670.' 



1 Ihid., p. 39. 



2 Disputatio de Cruce Bulhivellensi, p. 14. 



3 Ibid., p. 19. 



4 Ibid., pp. 15-17. 



5 Ibid., p. 16. 



* Stephens, The Ruthwell Cross, pp. 9, 17-18 : Old-Northern Runic Monu- 

 ments 1. 411, 419-20. On the former page he said: ' By the help of the 

 Casts since taken by Mr. Haigh, and of the Vercelli Codex, I have not onh^ 

 been enabled to amend the text and add some words to the carving, but I 

 have also found the name of the Immortal Bard — CiEDMON.' .See also my 

 edition of The Dream of the Rood, pp. xii-xiv, and pp. 12 (1895), 15, note 3, be- 

 low. Stephens called the period when this monument was raised ' the seventh 

 century or thereabouts.' He read on the top-stone in runes : CADMON 

 M^FAUCEfiO, which he interpreted : ' Cadmon me fawed (made).' 



' Old-Northern Runic Monuments, p. 400. 



(8) 



