ON THE PRE-NORMAN SCULPTURED STONES OF DERBYSHIRE. 1 69 



was found lately at Chester-le-Street with a horse (Plate XII.). 

 At Stonegrave (Yorks ) there is another very rude horse. It is 

 very remarkable, and it seems probable that some very interest- 

 ing fact is at the bottom of the difference, that the exquisite 

 stones known as Pictish, in 'Scotland, are many of them almost 

 covered with horses, for the most part beautifully designed, 

 and executed so well that you can tell that the horses are of 

 Arab breed, that they have been trained to very high action 

 with both hind and fore legs, that they are in exceedingly good 

 condition and high couraged. This difference between English 

 and Scottish stones is so very marked, that I commend it to 

 the consideration of archaeologists. The evident familiarity of 

 the " Pictish " stone cutters with horses well bred and numerous, 

 may account for the great distances traversed by the Picts in 

 their invasions of England, and may answer the scoffs of some 

 historians who will not believe in Pictish hosts in the southern 

 kingdoms. To be on horseback is more common than to be 

 on foot, on a " Pictish " stone. I made some remarks on this 

 subject in the Magazine of Art for November, 1882, p. 18. It 

 will be seen that the ornamentation of the great cross at 

 Bakewell consists of a magnificent scroll, springing alternately 

 right and left from a sort of cornucopia?. The scroll at the 

 top has a somewhat nondescript animal nibbling at the topmost 

 bunch of fruit. Now, the Northmen believed in a sacred tree, 

 known as the world-ash, in which four harts nibbled the buds. 

 The harts shown on the stone at York (Plate XII.) may have 

 reference to this part of the story. The tree was, besides, a 

 pathway for the messenger between the gods and the earth, 

 and this messenger was the squirrel. I suggest that the animal 

 on the Bakewell cross recalls this early belief, for nondescript as 

 it is there is no question at all that its fore legs clutching the 

 fruit excellently represent the attitude of a squirrel with a nut 

 in its paws. In this case we should have, as we have so 

 remarkably at Gosforth, a combination of the Christian and the 

 Teutonic religious beliefs, the Christian tree of life, and the 

 pagan messenger of the gods in its topmost branches. No one 



