REMAINS OF THE PRE-NORMAN PERIOD 
fleet did not appear and so he had to return by the way he came. 
Without going so far as to attempt any identification, it is worth while 
pointing out that he would have come round the north of Cumberland 
towards Ravenglass for the purpose of finding his ships, and it is possible 
that here at last the inhabitants, Northmen principally, made a stand. 
But there must have been many a battle hereabouts in those days. 
In 1897 another hogback was found under the north-east corner of 
the nave, and called by Mr. Calverley the ‘saint’s tomb’ because on its ends 
there are figures of Christ crucified and perhaps Christ in resurrection. 
On its sides are great serpents with human figures wrestling in their coils— 
another rendering of the subject already noticed in the Penrith hogback, 
the struggle of the seed of the woman with the serpent. 
At Plumbland there are two fragments of a hogback which was 
built into the church and carved by the early English mason into an 
impost or springer for an arch with honeysuckle-moulded ornament 
beneath. But the serpent is plainly seen on the walls of the shrine, and 
at its ends a variation of the Triquetra which is so conspicuous at 
Gosforth. 
To complete the series of Cumberland hogbacks that at Bromfield 
may be mentioned, built above the Norman arch inside the west door- 
way. It has a tegulated roof, but is too defaced and ill seen to illustrate. 
At Aspatria is part of a very fine hogback, with elaborate roof and 
sides carved into pilasters with rich interlacing. ‘The band of step- 
pattern at the eaves and the angular plait along the ridge seem to indicate 
a rather later date. 
At Cross Canonby is another hogback fairly complete, though its 
sides have been defaced. It is of red sandstone, 6 feet 1 inch long, 21 
inches high and 17 inches broad. It has at the gable-ends of the mimic 
roof some remains of the beasts’ heads which were common adornments 
of hogbacks, perhaps in imitation of the trophies put up on the gables of 
dwelling-houses of the time. The tegulation of the roof is curious, for 
it is the same chain-pattern we have seen on the shaft of Gosforth cross 
and referred to a Scandinavian origin. 
MInor SCANDINAVIAN Crosses: CHAIN-PATTERN 
The same ornament is the chief feature of the Dearham cross, 
which stood until 1g00 in the churchyard, but after some injuries was 
then put for safety inside the church. The western side bears out Mr. 
Calverley’s theory that the pattern is intended to Tepresent a Tree of 
Ygedrasil ; for there is the bole beneath, breaking into branches among 
which are two birds, and ending in curled twigs at the rim of the wheel- 
head. On the other side from a coil of roots four stems shoot up through 
an arch, which may possibly be intended for the rainbow, the bridge of 
the gods by which they descended from heaven ; and above it is another 
entanglement of branches. The idea of the artist may have been to sug- 
gest, as on so many of these gravestones, the hope of life to come, here 
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