246 General Discussion of the Crosses 



unc, 1 in a text which has some northern peculiarities [gesegon for 

 gesdwon, ccgan for cJegan, in for on), but also some which are as 

 clearly Late West Saxon [specan for sprecan, gyt for glet, drihten for 

 dryhten, pince^ for pynceff, gehyrde for gehJerde, miccle for micle, 

 nceddran for ncrdran)} 



In like manner, incit occurs in the poetical Genesis A (2732, 28S0), 

 side by side with unc (2504). 



As neither incit nor uncet appears in any other Germanic tongue, 

 we have no means of determining whether -it or -et is earlier, save on 

 the basis of Old English alone. Now as the Genesis A is presumably 

 earlier than the MalcJms, and as the former has -it (twice), while the 

 latter has -et, it would seem, though the evidence is scanty, that 

 -it is the older ending ; and this appears to be the view of Sievers, 

 who writes^ incit and uncit {?). Accordingly, the form on the Ruth- 

 well Cross, with its ending -et, would, by this test, be rather late. 



Again, the speUing of the runic form is very peculiar. It is usu- 

 ally transliterated as ungket or ungcet. Now the substitution of the 

 rune ng (a single letter) for n is sufficiently remarkable ; but, in 

 addition to this, I am convinced that the next following letter is 

 not c (or k), as in the cwomu^ of the west side, right border, but 

 rather g (the rune X). Hence we have the extraordinary form, 

 ungget, which looks as though the sculptor had carved a word whose 

 spelling was unfamiliar to him, and had done it bunglingly.^ 



Inc and unc, the much more usual forms of the dual dative and 

 accusative, continue on into Middle English, occurring as late as 



^ Shrine, p. 42. ^ All on p. 42. 



3 Old English Grammar, tr. Cook, § 332. 



■* The comparison with the first letter of cwomu may be conveniently 

 made on the basis of the photograph of the Edinburgh cast (reproduced 

 by Allen, Early Christ. Mon. of Scotland 3. 447), by counting down the 

 right border to the eleventh line, not including the upper margin. The first 

 three letters, CWO, are just above the bunch of fruit over the bird whose 

 head is turned to the left ; the rune for C looks something like a trident. 



^ The word can be made out by any one who has access to a good 

 photograph of this side (see Victor's Fig. 1, for example ; much less clear 

 in my Fig. 13 a) ; it is situated on the left border of the east side, nearly 

 opposite the hand of Christ in the group with the blind man, and also 

 nearly opposite the foot of the bird whose head is turned to the left. 

 The word is divided between two lines, thus : 



UUNG (three letters) 

 GET 

 the first U belonging to the pieceding word. 

 (34) 



