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Notes on the Ruthwell Cross
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
It has commonly been supposed that the first mention of the Ruthwell Cross was in these words of Hickes, on p. 5 of his edition of Jonas' Icelandic Grammar, published in 1703 as Part III of Hickes' Thesaurus: ‘Denique infra posui in quatuor tabellis .... æri insculptum nobilissimum monumentum Runicum, quod à se Ruthwelli, vulgo Revelli apud Scotos, descriptum ad me misit in Septentrionali literatura, præsertim in Runica, singulariter eruditus, Reverendus Wilhelmus Nicolsonus, Archidiaconus Carleolensis.‘ This must have been written before June 14, 1702, since on that day Nicolson was consecrated Bishop of Carlisle. No one seems hitherto to have inquired when Nicolson himself discovered the monument, nor what he thought of it. In the following pages I shall present Nicolson's own statement concerning his discovery, his references to the Cross at various subsequent times, and finally his detailed account of a collation of his transcript with the inscription on the Cross, made two years after Hickes had published the earlier transcript. This information is contained in the first volume of Nicolson's Letters on Various Subjects, edited by John Nichols, London, 1809. and in his unpublished diary for the year 1705.
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References
Note 1 in page 367 Cf. Wülker, Grundriss zur Gesch. der Ags. Lit., p. 134.
Note 2 in page 367 Since writing the above, Part II of Bishop Nicolson's Diaries has been published by Bishop Ware, in Vol. 2, New Series, of the Transactions mentioned on page 374.
Note 1 in page 371 Cf. Bishop Nicolson's Diaries, Part II, pp. 195–7; I follow the written transcript kindly sent me by Bishop Ware, which differs in a few typographical particulars from the above. The print has also: unwieldly (for unyieldly); these words (for the words); Scarr (for Scam).
Note 2 in page 371 This may have been George Fleming (1667–1747), domestic chaplain (1699) to Dr. Thomas Smith, bishop of Carlisle; prebend of Carlisle (1700); archdeacon of Carlisle (1705); dean of Carlisle (1727); bishop of Carlisle (1734–1747); second baronet of Rydal (1736). Bishop Nicolson made him vicar of St. Michael's, Stanwix, in 1703, and archdeacon in 1705.
Note 3 in page 371 Revel and St. Ruel's are alternative names for Ruthwell.
Note 4 in page 371 This Bowness is 2 1/2 miles south of Annan, and 12 miles northwest of Carlisle.
Note 1 in page 372 Rose Castle, the seat of the bishops of Carlisle, 7 miles southwest of Carlisle, on the river Caldew.
Note 2 in page 372 The first Earl of Annandale was John Murray, created March 13, 1624, keeper of the privy purse to James I, and groom of the bedchamber to Charles I. He died in 1640, and was not buried at Ruthwell, but at Hoddam. His son, the second Earl, died in 1658 without issue. Duncan says (Arch. Scot. 4. 317) of the Ruthwell Cross: ‘It was preserved from demolition [i. e. after the Reformation] to the middle of the 17th century, probably by the influence of the Murrays of Cockpool [Sir Charles Murray of Cockpool was the father of the first Earl of Annandale], the ancestors of the Earl of Mansfield [this seems to be an error], who were the chief proprietors as well as the patrons of the parish, and who had espoused the cause of the Episcopal party, in opposition to that of the Presbyterians.‘
Note 3 in page 372 These figures are confirmed by Duncan (Arch. Scot. 4. 320).
Note 4 in page 372 These pieces must have belonged to the upper part of the cross; there is no room for them between the two portions mentioned (see Duncan's Plate xiii).
Note 5 in page 372 Duncan in general confirms this (Arch. Scot. 4. 317): ‘In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of the parish of Ruthwell, a report is mentioned of its having been set up in remote times at a place called Priestwoodside (now Priestside), near the sea, from whence it is said to have been drawn by a team of oxen belonging to a widow. This tradition is still common in the parish, with some additional particulars. The pillar is said to have been brought by sea from some distant country, and to have been cast on shore by shipwreck; and while it was in the act of being conveyed in the manner described, into the interior, the tackling is reported to have given way, which was believed, in that superstitious age, to indicate the will of heaven that it was to proceed no farther. It was accordingly erected, if we are to credit the report, on the spot where it fell, and a place of worship was built over it, which became the parish-church of Ruthwell. It is not improbable that this tradition may bear some vague reference to the period when the alteration took place in the form, and perhaps also in the object, of the column, at which time its site may possibly have been changed. It is remarkable that the remains of an ancient road, founded on piles of wood, leading through a morass to the Priestside (which is a stripe of arable land inclosed between this morass and the shore of the Solway Frith), were in existence within the last thirty or forty years.‘
Is this account perhaps due to contamination between two legends of St. Cuthbert, the one related by Simeon of Durham concerning the loss of the Lindisfarne Gospels at sea, and its recovery on the shore at Whithorn through the agency of a dream (see my Bibl. Quot. in OE. Prose Writers, p. xlvii), and the other being the tale of the building of Durham Cathedral where the dun cow stopped with the relics of the saint? It must be remembered that this is Cuthbertine country: Whithorn is not fifty miles distant from Ruthwell in a straight line, and between lies Kirkcudbrightshire, whose name commemorates St. Cuthbert. Perhaps the story of the cows and the oxen which drew the ark (1 Sam. 6. 7–15; 2 Sam. 6. 3, 6) may lie at the basis of these and similar stories.
Note 1 in page 373 This may be a reminiscence of the Yggdrasill story (cf. Bugge, Studien über die Entstehung der Nordischen Götter- und Heldensagen, pp. 407 ff.).
Note 1 in page 374 An illustration of the imaginative temper which framed the legends related above.
Note 2 in page 374 Drumburgh, 8 1/2 miles northwest of Carlisle.
Note 3 in page 374 6 1/2 miles west of Carlisle.
Note 1 in page 376 Cf. the texts on pp. 381–2.
Note 1 in page 383 Bülbring, Altenglisches Elementarbuch, I. Teil.
Note 1 in page 384 Sievers, Angelsächsische Grammatik, Dritte Ausgabe.