The types of ornament came also from the same source, notably the famous interlaced patterns that we have already discussed. There were also elements in decoration which came from Frankish artists, and others from Scandinavian, but the basis of all Anglo-Saxon art was the style that came from Ireland, and that reached there the most perfect development.

But this influence may not have been restricted to the style of ornamentation or the shape of the crosses. The monumental cross itself, as we have seen, developed in the British Isles, not from the cross as it was set up in Rome, but from the ancient monoliths of the pagan Celts. We have seen that the huge stone was consecrated to Christian use by the Chi-Rho, or a cross with a circle cut upon its surface; then the stones were roughly hewn into the shape of a cross; finally, a graceful shaft was surmounted by a cross and ring, the whole covered with a wealth of interlaced ornament.

It was natural that the Celtic convert would the more readily erect stone monuments which, as his artistic powers developed, would tend to take the shape of the emblems of his faith. If one may trust the story of the life of St. Patrick, this is strikingly confirmed. In this there is such frequent reference to monumental crosses as to lead one to believe that they must have fairly studded the country-side. The island of Iona, also, a missionary outpost of the Irish church, was famous for its three hundred and sixty crosses. And in the west of Cornwall, where Irish missionaries labored, are a great many remains of ancient stone crosses which precede the time of interlaced ornament.

As in Anglo-Saxon England there were evidently few crosses before the interlaced period, it seems probable that something in the latter eighth century produced a greater devotion toward the cross, which led the Irish artist to devote his painstaking efforts in interlaced design to the stone surface of the cross, and which caused the Anglo

Saxons to adopt this species of cross for themselves, and to erect great numbers of them.

In the development of the monumental cross we noticed a trace of an ancient pagan custom of the Celts. This is worth inquiring into, to see if there were any elements in Teutonic paganism which contributed to the use of the cross among the Christian Anglo-Saxons.

II. TEUTONIC PAGANISM

According to Grimm,' the swastika was a holy sign among the Teutons, and was called by them the hamarsmark. This sign was held sacred; they cut it on trees as a boundary-mark, and in blessing the cup the sign of the hammer was made. The significance of blessing, or good luck, seems to have clung to this ancient symbol in all of its world-wide migrations.

According to other authorities, the swastika is not the hammer of Thor at all, and has no connection with the hammer of Thor. The best Scandinavian authors,' says Wilson, report "Thor hammer" to be the same as the Greek Tau, the same form as the Roman and English capital T.'

26

If we accept this, we can only recognize an added cross symbol-the tau cross, or Thor's hammer-which had a sacred significance to the pagan. The swastika as the sign of blessing was certainly known and employed. It is found on sepulchral urns, ceintures, brooches, fibulæ, pins, spearheads, swords, scabbards, etc., in Germany, Bavaria, and Scandinavia.'

In these uses the marking of a boundary, the blessing of the cup, weapons, and utensils, and the sign upon the burialurn-it is easy to see the likeness to certain Christian uses of the cross, or the sign of the cross. It seems not improbable that such uses, familiar to the pagan, would have made the

1

Teutonic Mythology, Stallybrass, p. 1345. 2 The Swastika, p. 770.

'Ibid. pp. 862 ff.

same uses of a Christian figure, almost identical, readily accepted.

As a matter of fact, the swastika was known among the Anglo-Saxons,' and persisted, at any rate in the ornament of their crosses and coins, after the establishment of Christianity. The illuminations of the Christian Irish show the same device. Wilson' mentions the baptismal font of an ancient church in Denmark as decorated with swastikas, showing its use in early Christian times there.

It is evident, then, that the sign was not only not regarded as a device of heathenism, but was accepted by Christians, even, as a form of their cross.

Moreover, both Celtic and Teutonic paganism recognized sacred stones. In Ireland, St. Patrick purified certain of these sacred stones at Mag Selce by inscribing Christian symbols on them. In England, stone-worship had to be forbidden by a special law in King Edgar's time; and the words of Ælfric, 'no Christian man can gain for himself help at any tree or stone save from the holy rood-token,' show that as late as his time the worship of trees and stones still persisted. It is not improbable that the Christian priest was all the more ready to erect the stone cross in order to give the people a stone to which they might bow in worship with propriety.

Of the ancient myths a great deal has been made in regard to their effect upon the ideas of Christian Europe, especially in connection with the conceptions of Christ and the cross. There are, indeed, striking similarities in the Christian and heathen notions. For example, as Christ hung upon the gallows-a common term for the cross-so

1

Ibid., p. 870.

2

* Ibid., p. 867.

It might be added that the idea of bringing the cross into the field of battle, as Oswald did, is not unlike a custom of the pagan Saxons, if we may accept the testimony of Sharon Turner. The priests in the hour of battle,' he says, 'took their favorite image from its column and carried it to the field' (Turner, Hist. A.-S. 5. 1. 156).

Odin hung upon a tree,' which is called a gallows. As Christ, one with God yet the Son of God, offered himself a sacrifice to God in behalf of man, so Odin was a willing sacrifice unto himself." Odin and Christ were both wounded with a spear as they hung, and both cried aloud with anguish.

The resemblance' continues also between the mythical treatment of the cross and the myths of the holy tree of the pagans. Odin hung on this tree, and, like Christ, is represented as the fruit of this tree. This world-tree, Yggdrasil, corresponds in many points with the mystical rood-tree of the Christians. It is called the best of trees, the tree of life,' and it is described like the tree of life in Paradise-with which the cross was fused-as having a spring of living water at its foot, its top touching the sky, its branches spreading over all the world, and Hell lying beneath its roots.

The relations of Christian and pagan myth in the light of these correspondences has been the subject of much discussion and difference of opinion. Stephens regarded this parallelism as due to pagan influence upon Christians, or the persistence of old traditions among those who were only nominally Christianized. Sophus Bugge just reversed the order, and developed the theory that it was the Christian ideas which affected the neighboring heathen. Müllenhoff, in his Deutsche Altertumskunde, contradicts Bugge, and declares again for the native, Germanic origin of the pagan myths. This seems the most natural supposition, and nothing save the scholastic passion for sources need interfere with the opinion that Teutonic mythology and Christian tradition had independent origins. This, however, does not interfere with the possibility that the correspondence of pagan and Christian ideas-as in the swastika noted above

1

1 Hovamol, stanzas 110 ff.

Ibid.

For detailed study of correspondences, see Bugge's Studien über die Entstehung der Nordischen Götter- und Heldensagen.

-made easier the acceptance of the latter, or a persistence of the one alongside of the other.

The traces of pagan mythology that concern us are found in the pictorial ornament of some of the interlaced crosses. Here the difficulty is that many of the representations may be interpreted as easily in a Christian as a pagan sense. For example, upon some of the crosses (e. g., the Dearham Standing Cross), 'is carved a conventionalized tree. It is customary to interpret this as the heathen world-ash Yggdrasil. It may readily be accounted for by Christian symbolism. The cross was constantly referred to as a tree, and most often as the tree of life. In Fortunatus,' the figure is carried out into details of branches, leaves, blossoms, fruit, and seed. What could be more appropriate for a Christian to carve upon the shaft of a cross than the figure of a tree?'

Upon the Gosforth Cross is a figure with arms outstretched, the blood gushing from a wound in the right side; a male figure stands at its right, holding a spear; and on its left, two female figures. Calverley interprets the central figure as Balder, the son of Odin, who was killed by an arrow of mistletoe shot by the evil god Loki. But since it was customary to carve representations of the crucifixion upon crosses of this later style, what more natural than to interpret this as one of them, with Longinus on one side, and Mary with Mary Magdalene on the other? Beneath the foot of one of the women is a serpent, evidently in memory of the prophecy, fulfilled in that scene, that the woman's seed should bruise the head of the serpent.

Again, on the Cross at Kirby Stephen is a rude carving of a male figure bound like a malefactor. The curious part of this is that it has conspicuous horns. Calverley and Stephens call it 'Loki bound,' in reference to a myth which we shall meet later. This may be its true explanation, but it is also possible to refer it to Satan, who was to be bound 'a thousand years' and cast into the 'bottomless pit.'' I

'Calverley, p. 515. 'Rev. 20. 2-3.

2

Crux benedicta and Pange lingua.