252 General Discussion of the Crosses 



They [runic monuments] are restricted in Scotland to the area which 

 was conquered and colonised by the Norsemen in the eighth and ninth 

 centuries, comprehending the Isles of Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, 

 and Man.^ 



According to the testimony of tliis word,'^ then, the form, if not 

 Scandinavian, seems at least to point to Scandinavian infhience, and 

 to be late rather than early.^ 



C. Metrical Peculiarities. 

 We next come to the metre of the poetic fragments found on the 

 RuthweU Cross. This I have discussed, in comparison with the metre 

 of the standard version of the poem excerpted (seep. 23), in the paper 

 referred to above,^ with the result here summarized : 



1. The poetic fragments have long lines, while the earliest Old 

 English poetry^ — Ccedmon's Hymn, Bede's Death-Song, the Leiden 

 Riddle, and the Bonifatian Proverb — has only short lines. 



2. The portions corresponding to lines 39—42 of The Dream of 

 the Rood cannot be made to scan or alliterate properly, while the 

 corresponding lines of The Dream of the Rood are unexceptionable 

 in this respect, thus confirming in a general way the view of Sweet 

 {Oldest English Texts, p. 125) : ' The sculptor or designer of the 

 Ruthweh stone, having only a limited space at his command, selected 

 from the poem such verses as he thought most appropriate, and 

 engraved them wherever he had room for them.' 



D. Historical Subject-Matter. 



Finally, we may consider the runic inscriptions with reference 

 to historical subject-matter, premising that as the memorial 

 high crosses of Ireland do not antedate the 12th century,^ as the 



1 Anderson, Scotland in Early Christ. Times 2. 226-7. 



^ The word Alcfrifeu points in the same direction ; cf . pp. 42-43. 



^ The two words, ricoes Dryhtnces, which were read in 1615 on the head 

 of a cross found at Bewcastle, were not necessarily on our cross (see p. 122, 

 below) ; if they were, the only mark of age is -cbs, and this, as I have shown 

 {Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc, of America 17. 388), is no binding proof of early 

 dates, Kluge quotes ll/ces twice, and domces once, from a brief MS. of 

 1050-1100, Eng. Stud. 8. 477), even if we disregard the possibiHty of copying 

 from an earUer inscription (see above, pp. 11,31). 



« Op. cit. 17. 375-381. 



6 Cf. p. 54, note 3. 



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