THE RUTHWELL CROSS. 49 
evangelists (5, 13, 15), perhaps copied from an Irish book 
(the first trace, so far, of Celtic art in England), and the legend 
of Wayland Smith (21, 25) already portrayed on the North- 
umbrian Franks casket in the British Museum, a work of the 
8th or goth century, and retold in the Vélundarkvida, the 
earliest poem of the Edda, dating to about goo. This cross, 
dating to about 920, 1s fully discussed in Vol. xxii. of the 
Thoresby Society’s Miscellanea. 
After this, in Northumbria, the Viking Age style formed 
such monuments as those at Dearham, Cumberland (Fig. 31), 
Stonegrave, Yorkshire (Fig. 32), and Gosforth, Cumberland 
(Fig. 33). The last, beautiful in its spiry proportions (144 
feet high) and interesting in its illustration.of the Edda poem 
known as the Véluspd, current at the close of the roth cen- 
tury, is identical in style with stones recovered from the 12th 
century foundations of Gosforth church, and must therefore 
be considerably older than the church; it must be of about 
1000 A.D. The style of these crosses was the style of the 
period in the North; any cross raised at Ruthwell in this age 
by North country people must have been of this type, which 
was carried to the countries in touch with Viking Age North- 
umbria and produced their 11th century designs. 
But in the South of England the older traditions derived 
from Northumbria lingered, developing into forms different 
from 8th and oth century Anglian. In stones of the Wilt- 
shire group, there are at Britford rings in the plait, not earlier 
than 1oth century; at Ramsbury, rings and roth century 
dragons; at Bradford-on-Avon, key-patterns of the 11th cen- 
tury, and Rivoira dates the architecture to about 1066-1086. 
The scrolls of Ramsbury are not volutes, but series of rings, 
unlike any Anglian scrolls, but like some Italian 11th century 
ornament. Now, if St. Dunstan, a Wessex man, designed 
Ruthwell Cross, he would have illustrated the style of his age; 
he could only have planned Ruthwell Cross, as we see it, by 
going back on the progress of art for two centuries and find- 
ing models in the North of England. 
What was being done in the time of King Knut in the 
North is shown by the Nunburnholme shaft (Fig. 34); the 
hands holding the arches are of the Viking Age; the local Jar] 
