the space with fruit. The upper half has two bunches, the lower four,-two depending from above, two springing from shoots below. The outside triangular spaces left by the figure of eight are filled up with bunches of fruit which tip the ends of the shoots.

Lastly, there is another design of interlaced bands taller than either of the preceding.. Runes, now illegible, once occupied the spaces between successive panels."1

"The north face of the cross is divided into five panels of varying heights, separated from one another by a narrow border.

"The top panel is filled by vine scroll. From a thick stem, which starts in the middle of the base, the main vine curves first to the right border, throwing off a spiral branch to the left, then to the left border, making a spiral to the left. Of the three spirals the lowest is the largest and most elaborate, and is separated from the others by a larger space than lies between the two upper ones. At the foot of the vine on either side hangs a short-stemmed bunch of fruit. From below each of the spirals stretches a shoot from the main vine, twined across the spiral, emerges above it, and ends in fruit or foliage. The spiral branches also end in fruit and foliage, which fill the interstices of the other carving.

"The next panel is quite small, and filled with an intricate pattern of interlacing.

1 A. S. Smith, op. cit. 239, 240,

"The third is entirely filled with chequer work, each alternate square of which is in relief.

"The fourth is small and filled with another pattern of interlacing.

"From the two lower corners of the fifth emerge two vines, which come into contact with each other twice, forming a symmetrical figure resembling an urn with two spirals at its base, and two at the top. The right vine curves towards and touches the left vine, then curves to the right border, and, again touching the left vine, it ends in a spiral and a bunch of fruit in the right upper corner. The left vine repeats this in the opposite direction.

"The borders between the panels originally contained runes, now mostly undecipherable."1

In regard to the inscriptions on the cross, Bishop Browne says: "They are all in Runic letters, decidedly Anglian runes, differing in conspicuous respects from Scandinavian runes. . . . Beginning with the west side, there is at the top, just where the blowing out of the socket of the actual cross has injured the edge of the socket, one word, perhaps 'Kristtus.' Then above the head of Our Lord, in two lines, with an initial cross, 'Gessus Kristtus' (i.e. Jesus Christ). This gives us the y pronunciation of the Anglian g, and shows us that our Anglian ancestors pronounced their consonants S and very sharply and decidedly in the middle of a word, practically doubling them. Then above the head of the king

1 A. S. Smith, op. cit. 238.