Page:The Dream of the Rood - ed. Cook - 1905.djvu/19



2. The inscription which might conceivably have been a later addition belongs to the seventh century.

3. The Cross bears the words 'Cadmon me made.'

As to the first of these postulates, the chief authority on the ornamentation, Sophus Müller, is thus reported by Bugge : 'The Ruthwell Cross must be posterior to the year 800, and in fact to the Carlovingian Renaissance, on account of its decorative features. The free foliage and flower-work, and the dragons or monsters with two forelegs, wings, and serpents' tails, induce him to believe that it could scarcely have been sculptured much before A.D. 1000 .'

As to the second postulate, I first showed in 1890, and again in 1901 , that the language of the inscription on the Cross must be as late as the tenth century, and very likely posterior to 950. To repeat the conclusions formulated in the more recent article : While the general aspect of the inscription has led many persons to refer it to an early period, it lacks some of the marks of antiquity ; every real mark of antiquity can be paralleled from the latest documents ; some of the phenomena point to a period subsequent to that of the Lindisfarne Gospels (about A.D. 950), and the Durham Ritual (A.D. 950-1000) ; and none flatly contradicts such an assumption. Moreover, a comparison of the inscription with the Dream of the Rood shows that the former is not an extract from an earlier poem written in the long Caedmonian line which is postulated by Vigfússon and Powell and by Mr.