Runic Inscriptions 245 



in 1890 ^ that, in spite of certain forms apparently early, the fragments 

 must be dated as late as, or later than, the Lindisjarne Gospels of 

 about 950. 



On the basis of this phonological examination [conducted at some 

 length] wc have found that, while the general aspect of the inscription 

 has led many persons to refer it to an early period, it lacks some of the 

 marks of antiquity ; every real mark of antiquity can be paralleled from 

 the latest documents ; some of the phenomena point to a period sub- 

 sequent to that of Lind. and Rit. [Lindisfarne Gospels and Durham 

 Ritual, ca. 950], and none flatly contradicts such an assumption. If to 

 this we add that a comparison with The Dream of the Rood indicates 

 that the Ruthwell inscription is later than that poem ; that certain 

 of the forms of the poem seem to have been inadvertently retained; 

 and that at least one word, dorstoe, is, in its radical vowel, not Northum- 

 brian at all, while it is of the dialect of the Rood, we shall not hesitate, 

 I believe, to assume that the Ruthwell inscription is at least as late as 

 the tenth century. ^ 



One word, not treated at length in my article of 1901, is here 

 dealt with more fully, because of the importance attached to it by 

 the brilliant scholar, Kemble. 



Unggel. 



Kemble called the word, which appears on the east side of the 

 Ruthwell Cross, on the left margin, a little more than halfway down, 

 an ' incontrovertible proof of extreme antiquity, having,' as he added, 

 ' to the best of my knowledge, never been found but in this passage.' 



That Kemble had found the word nowhere else was, of course 

 no proof whatever of its extreme antiquity. As a matter of fact, 

 it occurs neither in vSweet's Oldest English Texts (save here) nor 

 in the writings of Alfred. Had Kemble lived a few years longer, 

 he could, however, have found another example of it. The article* 

 from which the above extract is taken was published in 1840 ; 

 Kemble died in 1857 ; and between 1864 and 1869 Oswald Cockayne 

 published a set of occasional papers under the title of The Shrine, 

 in No. 7 of which, a life of Malchus, our word occurs as imcet, in the 

 following sentence : ' Her wit habba5 hielo, gif Drihten unc wile 

 fultumian ; and gif he forhiged uncet fyrenfulle, {Donne habbacJ wit 

 her byrgene in ^issum eorSscraefe.' Here it stands, parallel with 



^ Academy (London) 37. 153-4. 



* Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc, of America 17. 389-90. A better reading of 

 one of the words of the Leiden Riddle, cnyissan for cnyssa (Schlutter, 

 Anglia 32. 387), only confirm;^ my general conclusion. Brandl (see p. 14, 

 above) speaks of the lines as being ' partly in metrical confusion ' (p. 139). 



3 Archceologia 28. 359. 



Trans. Conn. Acad., Vol. XVII. 17 (33) 



