And again, “So far from the Cross-inscription representing an earlier form of the Dream of the Rood, it seems rather to have been derived from the latter, and to have been corrupted in the process.” *

* Ibid., p. xvi.

Thus the controversy remains in 1905. and until some further light is shed upon the difficult question—­for it is impossible to regard Mr. Cook’s solution as in all points satisfying—­we must be content with the results obtained.

Let us now consider the poem itself by the help of Professor Stephens’ admirable translation.  Essentially a Christian composition, it preserves all the Gothic strength and virile beauty of the old pagan forms.  The modern words, Saviour, Passion, Apostles, etc., do not once appear.  Christ is the “Youthful Hero,” He is the “Peace-God,” the “Atheling,” the “Frea of mankind.”  He is even identified with the white god, Balder the Beautiful.  His friends are “Hilde-rinks” or “barons.”  In His crucifixion He is less crucified than shot to death with “streals,” i.e., all manner of missiles which the “foemen” hurl at Him.  The Rood speaks and laments; it tells the story of the last dread scene of Christ’s suffering, His entombment in the “mould-house,” the triumph of the Cross in His resurrection, and the entry of the “Lord of Benison” into his “old home-halls.”

The doctrine is as sober as an orthodox, theological treatise, though the poem is essentially a work of the most fertile imagination, a drama with all the rich accessories that tradition offered in the matter of colouring and effect.  And it is withal exquisitely simple, devout, and noble, breathing a spirituality strangely at variance with the semi-barbaric people with whom the poetry had originated.

Stephens’ translation is full of poetry, the translator having retained the lilt of the original, together with many of the old English words which, if they need a glossary, is only because we have gradually lost the meaning in the substitution of weaker terms.

It is interesting to compare the fragments still legible on the Ruthwell Cross with the South Saxon rendering in the Vercelli Codex.  Where the lines are worn away or mutilated the Ms. may supplement them:—­

Northumbrian version--------------------South Saxon version according
to the
on the Cross.----------------------------Vercelli Codex.
------------------------------------------------------------

---

Girded Him then--------------- For the grapple then girded him youthful
hero—­
God Almighty-----------------lo! the man was God Almighty. 
When He would-------------------Strong of heart and steady-minded
Step on the gallows-------------stept he on the lofty gallows;
Fore all Mankind--------------fearless spite that crowd of faces;
Mindfast, fearless---------------free and save man’s tribes he would
there. 
Bow me durst I not-------------Bever’d I and shook when that baron
claspt me