The shaft appears to taper; the neck may be visible at the right.

A (?broad): A plain, flat moulding flanks a single panel containing a ribbon profile beast with its head thrown back and down. The torso has a double outline only on the upper edge. Simple incised scrolls appear where the fore leg extends across the panel by the neck, and on the throat, next to the small toes of the foot. The brow is domed with an incised elliptical eye. The snout is extended into long gaping jaws, each with a horizontal slit. They have a single fang each, the lower one growing from the slit. A fetter band passes across the fangs through the mouth and continues to loop the torso in two places before it resolves in a scroll and broken extension. Clusters of pellets are used as fillers as well as a shield-like element with pellet formations on its three points in front of the head. At the top of the stone there are bindings of the fetter.

This is probably the finest and most decorative of the Ryedale bound dragons (see Chap. 9). It is also the most coherent, especially about the jaws which at Middleton and Levisham, become less realistic and more heavily stylized. It is probable that the Sinnington dragons of nos. 3–5 are the immediate source for those in the Middleton area, and for the smaller ones with looped jaw, like Ellerburn 1 (Ill. 427). It would be rash to assume the Sinnington beasts were pure Jellinge in style (Lang 1973). The proximity of York to Ryedale allows for the influence of the interlocked beasts of the York Metropolitan School, since the thrown-back neck results in the head adopting the Sinnington position; compare York Minster 2D (Ill. 13). It is possible to see this mannerism developing throughout Eastern Yorkshire: for example at Nunburnholme 1 (Ill. 726) and Folkton 2 (Ills. 448–9). The ultimate origin is pre-Viking Mercian animal ornament (Lang 1978b, 149–59; idem 1978c, 15, fig. 2).

The semicircular leg-joint, ribbon form, and double outline, all occur on classic Jellinge-style animals (Wilson and Klindt-Jensen 1966, 95, fig. 43), but the entangling trails have a long Insular ancestry, going back to Hiberno-Saxon decoration of manuscripts and sculpture. Lindisfarne 1A, Northumberland (Cramp 1984, II, pl. 189, 1040) provides a very early prototype for the Sinnington creature, as do many pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels. This may imply a revival of an old Insular animal rather than a response to intrusive Scandinavian taste.