A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 
are the stag and the dog or wolf; and there are resemblances in 
many sculptures less close and striking. In this way the Gosforth 
cross may be regarded as one of a series of Christian monuments 
made at a time when the Edda songs were in vogue, and people half 
believed the stories of the old gods and liked to portray them. That 
this was the case we know from the sagas, which tell us of men in 
the tenth century who had been baptized but prayed to Thor when 
they were at sea or in great danger, and carved Edda stories in wood or 
worked them in tapestry ; and we have reason for thinking that Cum- 
berland was then the haunt of such Northmen, one of whom would 
be fitly commemorated in this monument. 
A wheel-head now built into the church in two fragments was 
probably part of the cross cut down in 1789 to make the present sun- 
dial in the churchyard ; this must have been similar to the standing 
cross. A larger wheel-head built into the same wall probably belonged 
to a third cross, of which a fragment, now to be seen in the wall under 
the heads, was found by Dr. Parker in 1882. This third cross must 
have been low and broad, not tall and round-shafted ; but it was carved 
with another Edda subject. The story of Thor’s fishing is told in the 
poem called Hymiskvida: how Thor went out in a boat in the Arctic 
regions with the giant Hymir, and fished for the Midgard’s-worm, the 
great sea-serpent which encircled the earth. He baited his line with 
a bull’s head and got a bite, but when he was hauling up his catch 
the giant became terrified and cut the line with his axe. In the 
Fishing stone, the fragment here preserved, the picture of the incident 
is given: Thor with his hammer and line, let down with the bull’s 
head among the fishes ; Hymir with his axe, and the boat with its mast 
and crow’s-nest as seen in tapestry and other illustrations of boats of the 
period. Now it is thought that the Hymiskuida is part of the Greenland 
series of poems ; Greenland was not discovered until 982-83, and so 
this carving must be later. ‘The Edda songs would have been in vogue 
on the borders of the Irish Sea, where they were first composed, about 
the year 1000 ; and these illustrations of their subjects must have been 
done in the period of their popularity. 
HocGsacks 
In 1896 under the foundations of the north-west corner of the 
Norman church was discovered the hogback called by Mr. Calverley the 
‘ warrior’s tomb,’ a house-shaped stone with imitative tiles to its roof and 
interlacing on one side and a scene of battle or truce-making on the 
other. There are two armies with spears and round shields of the pre- 
Norman age, one army reversing its spears and its leader apparently giving 
up the flag to the leader of the other army. ‘This can hardly mean 
anything but a record of victory won by the chieftain of Gosforth here 
buried. We know that king Aithelred in 1000 a.p. ravaged a great 
part of Cumberland and hoped to meet his fleet on the coast, but the 
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