ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS
is now inserted. At the base of the shaft are scenes from the Sigurd legend: Sigurd roasting the heart of Fafnir, and putting his burnt finger to his lips. Above are birds in a tree; and below, Sigurd is seated at a forge, with Regin's headless body, and a piece of knotwork representing Fafnir above him. On the north side is Sigurd's horse Grani, riderless, and above him dragons perhaps representing the snakes of Gunnar. On the south side are panels of foliage, and on the west a scene which may be meant for the Resurrection. The style of decoration is late, and probably the cross is not earlier than the eleventh century.
Parts of several other crosses have been set up within the church under the tower, with figure subjects in panels, and scrollwork of Anglian type. The fragments are built up on each other to a height of 11 feet, but they clearly belong to at least two separate crosses.
In the same vicinity is Heysham, which possesses the ruins of a very early church of a type which is Celtic rather than Saxon. It stands on a rocky knoll to the west of the present church, and close to it are eight graves cut in the rock, with sockets at their heads, in which crosses have probably been set. The rock surface bears traces of having been carved with an interlacing pattern. In the churchyard of the present church is the lower part of the shaft of a cross with interlacing panels at the base, and spiral foliage pattern of Anglian type on the sides. On one face is a seated nimbed figure under an arch, and on the other a gabled building with three windows in which three human heads appear, while below is a central doorway in which stands a figure swathed in what may be grave clothes. It has been explained as the raising of Lazarus, or the Resurrection.
In the churchyard is also a hogback stone 6 feet in length, with zig-zag lines in imitation of tiling on the top, and at each end an animal clasping the stone, as on other specimens of this form of monument. The subjects on the sides have been variously explained as a stag-hunt and as scenes from pagan mythology.[1] In the latter case the stone would belong to the same category as the Halton churchyard cross.
Eight miles from Lancaster is the ancient village of Hornby (the 'Hornebie' of Domesday), where in the church is the upper portion of a cross, which from the decoration upon it is commonly called the 'loaves and fishes cross.' The portion is only about 2 feet in length, but the sculpture indicated is apparently unique in this country, representing two fishes below five loaves, above which is a conventional tree enclosing a figure on either side. The three other faces of the stone are decorated with devices of interlacing and coiling rope, while a panel at the top of the back seems to enclose an angel figure. The details of the work are very highly finished, and of unusual excellence. A fragment of a second cross, part of the lower arm of the head, with a zig-zag pattern, is also preserved in the church. In the churchyard is a pyramidal stone 6 feet 2 inches high, with a semi-circular arch in low relief on each face, and on the top the socket for a cross-shaft.
Two miles to the north-east is Melling, where there are portions of a sculptured slab of the same type as that found in Lancaster parish church,
- ↑ This monument has naturally been much discussed and described. See Lanc. and Ches. Antiq. Soc. Trans. (1841); Colley Marsh, 'The Pagan-Christian Overlap.'
267
