Ruthwell Cross
A tall stone cross carrying Christian verse in runes, corresponding to passages of the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood. Decisive evidence that runes and Christianity coexisted.
At a glance
- Alphabet
- Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
- Date
- 8th century
- Found at
- Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
- Now
- Ruthwell parish church
- Signature
- None given here. English, Frisian and Continental material is catalogued outside the Rundata tradition altogether; elsewhere a signature is left off only where we could not verify one. Either way the object is cited by name and findspot.
The text
Why none is reproduced here.
Not reproduced. This inscription is either too long to quote in full or its reading is contested enough that printing one transliteration would suggest a settled text where there is not one. Look it up under its name in the standard catalogues, where the readings are given with their apparatus.
Discovery
It stood at Ruthwell until 1642, when the Church of Scotland ordered it broken up as idolatrous. The fragments were recovered and reassembled in the 19th century, and it now stands inside the parish church. Some of the runic text was lost in the interval, which is why editions of the inscription and of the manuscript poem have to be read against each other.
Why it matters
The runes on its narrow faces give lines spoken by the Cross itself, closely related to The Dream of the Rood as preserved in a manuscript three centuries later. That a monumental Christian cross carries devotional poetry in runes disposes of the idea that the script was pagan and suppressed. It is also one of the few monuments where the late Northumbrian additions calc and gar can be seen cut on an object rather than drawn in a manuscript row, with the caveat below about when the runic panels were actually cut.
Common misconceptions
Claims about this object that circulate widely and do not hold up.
Dating the monument is not the same as dating its runes, and the two get run together constantly. The cross is 8th-century Northumbrian sculpture; the runic panels on its narrow faces may have been added later, and Conner has argued for a 10th-century context for the runic poem specifically. That matters beyond this object, because Ruthwell is one of the few places calc and gar are cited as cut rather than merely listed, so how early that attestation is depends on a question this stone has not settled.
Runes attested here (4)
Every dictionary entry that cites this object, with the reason it gives.
- ÞornFuthorc
A tall stone cross carrying verses in runes that correspond to the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood. Decisive evidence that runes and Christianity coexisted.
- WynnFuthorc
Uses the full range of English runes including those the Elder Futhark had and Scandinavia lost.
- SigelFuthorc
Christian verse in runes, on a monumental stone cross.
- CalcFuthorc
One of the few monuments where a Northumbrian addition is securely attested in carved use.
Sources
Full references on the sources page.