Page:The Dream of the Rood - ed. Cook - 1905.djvu/14

Rh those now on the monument having been supplied in 1823. The monument is sculptured with figure-subjects on the broad faces, and on its sides with scroll-work. The figure-subjects on the broad faces of the Cross are arranged in panels surrounded with flat borders, on which are incised the inscriptions which give to this monument its special interest. They are in two languages and two alphabets, one set being carved in Roman capitals, the other in runes. The runes are on the raised borders enclosing the two panels of scroll-work, and are arranged in vertical columns, extending from top to bottom, with the exception of the first line, which runs horizontally across the top of the panel. Consequently it reads from left to right across the first line, in the usual way, then continues in a vertical line down the whole of the right-hand border, returning to the top of the left-hand border, and reading vertically again to the base. As the lower part of the Cross is more wasted than the upper, there are places where the reading fails toward the bottom of each border, thus making four gaps in the continuity of the inscription .'

The general meaning of the runic inscription was first made known by Kemble in a paper published in vol. 28 of Archæologia (1840), and the substantial identity of the fragments with corresponding portions of the Dream of Rh