Anglo-Saxon runes

The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet, not to be found in languages of other groups. The word rune originally meant ’secret’, ‘mystery’ and hence came to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. The runes – symbols were very vague, that might at the same time denote a sound, a syllable or a whole word. This alphabet is called futhark after the first six letters. The main use of runes was to make short inscriptions on objects, often to bestow on them some special power or magic. The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant OE written records. One of them is and inscription on a box called the “ Franks Casket ”

Runic letters are angular; straight lines are preferred, curved lines avoided; this is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in hard material: stone, bone or wood. The shapes of some letters resemble those of Greek or Latin, other have not been traced to any known alphabet, and the order of the runes in the alphabet is certainly original. The number of runes in England was larger: new runes were added as new sounds appeared in English (from 28 to 33 runes in Britain against 16 or 24 on the continent).

The Auzon Runic Casket, a carving made of whalebone, counts among the most outstanding objects from Anglo-Saxon days.After a long and obscure history it is now exhibited in the British Museum in London, named after its donor “Franks Casket”.

Picture1. “Franks Casket”

The other is a short text on a stone cross near the village of Ruthwell known as the “Ruthwell Cross”. This cross is remarkable for its runic inscription, which contains excerpts from The Dream of the Rood, an Old English poem. The Ruthwell Cross is a stone Anglo-Saxon cross probably dating to the 8th century, when Ruthwell was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria; it is now in Scotland. Anglo-Saxon crosses are closely related to the contemporary Irish high crosses, and both are part of the Insular art tradition. The Ruthwell cross features the largest figurative reliefs found on any surviving Anglo-Saxon cross - which are virtually the largest surviving Anglo-Saxon reliefs of any sort - and has inscriptions in both Latin and, more unusually for a Christian monument, the runic alphabet.

It contains lines similar to lines 39-64 of The Dream of the Rood, an Old English poem, which were possibly added at a later date. It is 18 feet (5.5 metres) high. The cross was smashed by Presbyterian iconoclasts in 1664, and the pieces left in the churchyard until they were restored in 1818 by Henry Duncan. In 1887 it was moved into its current location in Ruthwell church, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, when the apse which holds it was specially built

It is both the most famous and elaborate Anglo-Saxon monumental sculpture, and possibly the oldest surviving “text” of English poetry, predating any manuscripts with Old English poetry. It has been described by Nikolaus Pevsner thus; “The crosses of Bewcastle and Ruthwell....are the greatest achievement of their date in the whole of Europe.”

Pictures 3. “Ruthwell Cross”

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