159 
the dark enamel would have presented. To speak now more 
particularly of the several characters : the initial cross is 
small in proportion, irregularly formed, and rather spread 
out at the ends. The A has two inclined strokes with the 
cross-line at the top. The C's are like E's without the 
central cross-mark. The N has its two side-marks almost 
close together, and its cross-mark not going from corner to 
corner, but from side to side, like an H with an oblique 
cross-mark. The V has a sort of elongation at the point, 
making it almost like a Y. The S is Kke a reversed Z, as 
usually at this time. The rest of the letters are ordinary 
Roman capitals, but the E in the last word is represented by 
a mark of abbreviation. These archaic Anglo-Roman letters, 
like Runes and other primitive characters, were, doubtless, 
made to consist almost entirely of straight lines for the sake 
of greater facility in carving, &c. The Runic alphabet used 
in the Manx inscriptions has only one letter containing a 
curved line, the Thorn or th. 
A very similar gold ring was found, in 1773, at Llysfaen, 
Caernarvonshire. It is not known where it now is, but it is 
described in the fourth vol. of Archceologia. It has no bezel, 
but consists of four circular and as many lozenge-shaped 
compartments, each surrounded by a chain ornament, and 
occupied by enamel and letters in the same way as the Drif- 
field ring. The inscription is the proper name + ALHSTAN, 
the cross and letters being in the circular compartments, two 
in each. The final letter is the Rune nydy the rest are 
Roman letters, the S being a reversed Z. 
Any attempt to discover the original owner of the Driffield 
ring must of necessity be based upon conjecture, for it bears 
no name, as this one does. But so fine and costly a specimen 
of goldsmith's work may well be supposed to have belonged 
to the royal family which owned Driffield in the 7th and 
8th centuries, namely, that of Oswin, king of Northumbria- 
