ART. XXIV. Bewcastle Cross. By the Rev. W. S. Calverley, F.S.A.

Read at Bewcastle, August 21, 1891.

THE THE two accompanying large illustrations are from Mr. Fletcher's photographs, and shew the west and south faces of the great cross at Bewcastle. The details are :— west face, near the top, remains of runes* over an oblong square headed panel, containing the figure of S. John Baptist bearing the nimbed Agnus Dei. Beneath this panel and over a much larger central oblong circular headed panel, two lines of runes, the upper line beginning with the sign of the cross and reading GESSUS (Jesus), the lower one reading KRISTTUS (Christ). This central panel contains the glorified figure of the Great Christ, robed as a priest, bearing in His left hand the sacred roll, His right hand uplifted to bless, treading upon the lion and the adder, and His Holy head leaning slightly to the right hand surrounded with the circling halo. Below this central figure comes the principal inscription in nine lines of runes. Beneath this, in a wide circular headed panel, standing a little sideways, and looking towards the spectator's right hand, is a man holding on his left wrist his hawk, which has flown up from its perch beneath. The stone is here much weather worn but the figure appears to wear a tippet or cape, and may hold something in the right hand, whilst the legs and feet appear beneath the tunic, and the head is uncovered. These three figures are the only human representations on the cross. The central figure is the Christ. Above we see S. John, who was sent to prepare the way of the

* Prof. Stephens thinks that these runes may also have recorded the Holy Name. Lord

Lord. Beneath surely the King or leader, by whose help this cross was set up, as a sign that the way of Christ was to be made plain in the wilderness of heathen Northumbria. "It may have been the figure of Alcfrith himself," whose name appears in the inscription above the panel, which reads (according to Prof. Stephens) "This sign-beacon (trophy) set up Hwatred, Worthgar, and Olfwolthu, after Alcfrith, once King, Eke son of Os wi. Pray for his soul."

The details of the south face are at the bottom an intertwined knot ornament; above this a line of runes beginning with the sign of the cross; above this a very beautiful piece of double scroll work, consisting of two grape bearing vines with foliage and clusters, filling an oblong panel. Another line of runes appears above and a smaller panel of knot work above this, surmounted again by a panel filled with a single vine scroll bearing near the centre an early sun dial whose principal time divisions are marked by a cross, and having rich fruit above. Another line of runes separates this panel from a third carving of knotwork, which with some more runes brings us to the top of the cross shaft. Prof. Stephens reads the lines of runes on this face thus:-" In the first year of the King of this realm Ecgfrith," and he considers that this gives us the date of the cross A.D. 670. Ecgfrith succeeded his half brother Alcfrith in this year. Oswi's first wife, a Celtic lady, bore him. Alcfrith. King Ecgfrith's mother was Eanflæd, daughter of King Edwin of Northumberland.

The north face has also five panels. The central and largest panel, filled with chequers only, has above and below it and separated by a line of runes, a smaller panel, containing very elegant knotwork presenting elaborate specimens of the sacred sign of the Holy Trinity-the

I quote Prof. Stephen's reading of the runes, and therefore give his argument based upon them for the date given by him.

triquetra

In the

triquetra so constantly used in the early MSS. lowest compartment on this side are two conventional flower and fruit bearing vine scrolls of perfect design. and exquisite workmanship, more nobly conceived than perhaps anything of the kind which is known in the land. The uppermost compartment contains a single such scroll. The two divisions-at the top and at the bottom of this side-containing these three Paradise Trees are separated from the knotwork divisions each by a line of runes. At the very top, preceded by three crosses, is another line of runes-GESSUS (Jesus). The runes on this face appear to name three persons, Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, and son of Penda, Künnburug Alcfrith's Queen and Penda's sister, and Künneswitha the Queen's sister. It will thus be seen that the chief face of the stone bears three sculptured figures, the central one being the Christ; that each of the two panelled sides shews three divisions of interlaced work or geometrical design, and three conventional flower and fruit bearing vines, and that the knotwork displays in various ways the sign of the Trinity (on the south sidehere shewn the lowest panel has eight double and the central and smaller panel eight single triquetrae joined in one). The sun-dial, with its rays marking the hours and the hole for its gnomon, has been cut at the time of the making of the cross, and is part of the original design so far as we can see. It would be difficult to refuse to believe that the main object of the work was to teach the doctrine of the Trinity of the godhead with its manifestation of the Sun of righteousness-Jesus the Christ-the Lord of life-the true Vine--whilst commemorating the triumphant dead at a period when the streams of Roman and Celtic art met and were harmonized by ornamentation of a general northern character, possibly under the influence of Wilfrid's foreign masons, and when the streams of northern and classic ideas also met and were

being harmonized by the religious poems and scripture paraphrases of the first of all the English poets-Cadmon -in the monastery of the Abbess Hilda at Whitby.

The east face of the cross is filled with one great vine scroll rising boldly from below and bearing many fruits, which are being eaten by beasts and birds. A hound or fox devours a cluster near the ground, further up are two creatures of conventional character, and higher still two birds, hawk or eagle and raven, whilst the two topmost fruits are nibbled by two squirrels. All this is much like the scroll work on the two sides of the Ruthwell cross, as also is the figure of Christ treading on the beasts (swine or lion and adder) on the west face, and the S. John Baptist bearing the Agnus Dei which appears in the upper panel of both crosses; but whilst the Ruthwell cross has ten panels filled with figures and no other ornamentation than the two similar scrolls worked on the two edges of the stone and the runes which are cut everywhere along the borders of the panels, the Bewcastle Cross apparently presents one commemoration surmounted by the Saviour and His forerunner, and is rich in moulding and in design, calculated to present and illustrate to a people saturated with the northern idea the central thought of the christian teaching alone.

NOTES.-Canon Cooper has sent me photographs and drawings of a fragment of a cross at Haversham, which shows scroll work and beast similar to the lower part of the east face of Bewcastle Cross.-W.S.C.

For Mr. Nanson's paper on Bewcastle see Trans. vol. iii, p. 215.

See also Stephen's Old Northern Runic Monuments, Bewcastle part ii, p. 398. Ruthwell id., p. 405.