Page:The Dream of the Rood - ed. Cook - 1905.djvu/20

Rh Brooke, since the earliest dated verse is in short lines only, and since four of the lines in the Cross-inscription represent short lines in the Dream of the Rood ; it shows that the latter is more self-consistent, more artistic, and therefore more likely to be or to represent the original ; and it shows that certain of the forms of the latter seem to have been inadvertently retained by the adapter who selected and rearranged the lines for engraving on the Cross. All this harmonizes with the evidence from grammar, and with the conclusions drawn from the character of the sculptured ornament.

As to the third postulate, it may be remarked that the forms mæ and fauæþo are impossible as Old English ; that, were they existent, fauæþo could not mean 'made'; and that, even allowing this to be true, the maker could in that case mean only the sculptor of the whole Cross, and not the author of the runic verses. But what is still more conclusive, Vietor, the latest competent scholar who has made a thorough examination of the Cross, declares that he can read no such inscription.

Summing up the evidence, then, the indications are as follows :

1. So far from the Cross-inscription representing an earlier form of the Dream of the Hood, it seems rather Rh