Necessity mother of invention: a fresh look at the rune verses on the Ruthwell Cross

Abstract

If one is familiar with medieval inscriptions that, so to speak, frame images, what is most striking about the rune verses on the lower twelve-foot shaft of the Ruthwell Cross is their vertical orientation in the four long borders. In my earlier monastic days, while installing electricity in the church of Quarr abbey, I spent hours at the top of a tall ladder drilling holes through the brick courses. So, later, while studying the problems presented by the Ruthwell Cross I rather easily imagined myself up a ladder facing this tall Cross and chiselling runes. From such a ladder position, chiselling vertical letters/runes seemed the easiest way and most rational way to proceed, and given that such a disposition of the runes seemed unique to this monument I concluded, too hastily I now admit, that was how the Ruthwell rune cutter had worked. Such a view suggested there had been a time lag between the making of the monument, when all the chiselling work must have been done with it lying flat on the ground, and the insertion of the runic verses at a later date, made from a ladder, after the cross had been erected. I presented my argument on ‘The Date of the Runic Verses’ as an Appendix to ‘An Apocalypse Panel on the Ruthwell Cross’ – an article dating from 1978, but only published in 1982. Familiarity with Ray Page's work on runes led me to wonder how he would react to my theory, so I had written him in the winter of 1975. He was a recognized and respected authority on runes, and since he is no longer with us, the answer I received may be worth putting on record.