178 ROMAN PAVEMENTS AND INTRECC1. 



yard at Gosforth has upon it a sculpture represented in 

 Illustration XVI. It sets out a well-known pagan story, how 

 Thor, the Defender of Man and the Serpent's Destroyer, 

 " Orms ein-bani," went fishing with the giant Hymi.* And 

 Thor rowed out so far from land that Hymi said it was perilous 

 there because of Midgarft's Orm, the great snake that lay in the 

 deeps and encircled the whole earth, the bane of seafarers. 

 And then, while Hymi began fishing for whales, Thor fastened 

 to his own hook an ox's head. And the Great Worm itself, the 

 enemy of the gods, gulped down the bait and was drawn up to the 

 gunwale. And Thor with his hammer smote the head of the 

 venom-streaked serpent, who struggled so furiously that Hymi, 

 filled with fear, severed the line with his axe, and the snake, the 

 Wolfs twin brother, fell back into the sea. 



Above the head of the god, we see an intreccio. It is the 

 reptile-contortions that signify the defeat of earth's and 

 heaven's foe. A custom grew up among the pagans of the 

 north, when they raised a stone of commemoration, to carve 

 upon it Thor's head, or Thor's hammer, and to engrave 

 runes upon the sculptured body of the dying dragon. Thor 

 was mightier to save than the powers of evil to destroy. The 

 inscription on the memorial monolith, 10 feet high, found at 

 Stenqvista, Sweden, Illustration XXI. merely says " Helki and 

 Fraufair & Thorkaut raised these seven stones to Thiuthmunt 

 their father." 



3 , There are some intrecci in early Syriac churches that sug- 

 gest a zoomorphic origin ; and the legend that would account 

 for them may be discerned in a highly-wrought allegory, the 

 Hymn of the Soul, written by Bardaisan, of Mesopotamia, the 

 great Gnostic theologian of the end of the II. cent. 



" While yet a child and dwelling in my Father's House, 

 Brought up in luxury and well content therewith, 

 Out of the East, our Home, my Parents sent me forth. 



* Corpus Boreale, Hymis Kvida. 



