192 SUPPOSED INSCRIPTION UPON THE FONT AT WILNE. 
William’s men are cutting down trees to build the invading ships, 
the bird on the tapestry being engaged in eating something which 
springs in branches from the border line which marks out the 
triangle. It seems not unlikely that the Wolverhampton bird is 
similarly engaged ; and if I have correctly outlined his tail—it was 
done before I had noticed the Bayeux resemblances—it repro- 
duces a marked feature of the Bayeux birds. The quadrupeds at 
Wolverhampton, in the large diamond spaces, have no resemblance 
to anything at Bayeux. They, like the historical belt of the 
tapestry, are the main theme; the birds in the triangles above and 
below correspond to the upper and lower border at Bayeux. In 
a higher tier at Wolverhampton, where the triangles are smaller, 
a piece of simple ornament takes the place of the bird, as in the 
smaller spaces on the tapestry, 
To point out a resemblance is much more easy than to suggest 
any reason for it. The Bayeux tapestry was not unique. At the 
time when the Church of Wolverhampton was being founded by 
the widow of a great lord of the Midlands, the valiant deeds of 
Britnoth were being wrought ona curtain for the Church of Ely 
by the widow of the great Ealdorman of the East Saxons, who was 
killed A.D. 991. In 1013, the description of the pictorial sails and 
the ornaments of Swegen’s ships reads like a summary of the 
Bayeux borders—birds and dragons and lions and bulls and 
dolphins. All our knowledge goes to show that the use of these 
figures was no invention of that age; and so far as they are con- 
cerned, the Wolverhampton birds and beasts are as likely to date 
from the times when the famous Lady of the Mercians expelled 
the Danes, and Tettenhall witnessed their great slaughter, as from 
the time when the Bayeux tapestry was wrought or later. But, as 
I have remarked, there are some details which seem late, perhaps 
only because other early examples have all perished. 
An even more striking example of a cylindrical pillar is 
found in the churchyard at Masham. Of this remarkable monu- 
ment three complete tiers and at least half of a fourth remain. It 
is quite worthy to be compared with the Wilne pillar, but unfortu- 
nately its state of preservation is not nearly so good. The lowest 
