As Collingham 1

See Collingham 1. The lower part of the shaft, first published by Haigh (1856–7, 512–17), was found in 1841 below ground and near the foundation of the church. At an early date various pieces were added, so early drawings show it in a different composite structure from the present arrangement: in fact nos. 3 and 5 were cemented to it (see Haigh 1856–7, pl. 2; Pettigrew 1864, fig. 4). It stood for some years in the vicarage garden and then in its greenhouse. It was in the church by 1891, but moved once more before it reached its present site at the east end of the north aisle. It was re-united with its present, correct top part, after the restoration of 1900, in which this piece was unearthed from beneath two feet of soil (Speight 1902, 448).

St Oswald

All faces are in good condition, relatively unworn.

A tapering cross-shaft of rectangular section. The style of carving is flat, with the background cut away cleanly and dressed flat. All faces are edged with flat mouldings. Panel dividers on faces A and C are also flat.

A (broad): (i) The upper panel is substantially complete, lacking only the upper left border. A long-bodied animal, double-outlined with a separately outlined hip (but without the spiralled joint to its front leg drawn by Collingwood), stands to the left on its hind legs, which have clawed feet, and with its forelegs stretching into the upper right corner. Its downbent head has open jaws and a domed forehead, but its pointed oval eye is not as clear as in Collingwood's drawing (1915a, 158, fig. f). Its upper jaw is extended and has a curling clubbed tip. It has an ear lappet which twists around its body, interlacing in front and tangling its feet. The creature's long neck bends down between its forepaws so that it can bite at the end of this strand. (ii) The narrow panel below has a simple horizontal twist. (iii) This panel has animals of the same type as the one above (except that they have tails) which rear up on either side to confront each other head-to-head. The joints of the forelegs are single-outlined, like the hip of the creature above. Their ear lappets extend behind the body of the creature on the left, in front of the one on the right, to interlace between them and again entangle their legs, where the lappets join with the tails. (iv) At the base of the shaft is a plain area with a runic inscription (see below). Early drawings, for example Haigh (1856–7, pl. 2) show an inscription in two lines, but there is no evidence for more than one line.

B (narrow): This face is unpanelled. It is ornamented with a heavy interlace, four registers of alternating half-pattern D with glides, terminating at top and bottom with Stafford Knots (simple pattern E). There is a plain area below the interlace, at the base of the shaft.

C (broad): (i) The upper panel lacks its top right corner. An animal crouches in the lower left corner, one hind leg on the lower border, the other in the bottom right corner. Its missing head reaches into the top right corner. Its tail extends into a lacing strand to form a Stafford Knot (simple pattern E) behind its back, then crosses its body to terminate in a similar knot around one of its hind legs. (ii) Below is an interlace pattern, spiralled pattern A with cross-joined terminals. (iii) This panel is now more worn than when drawn by Collingwood, but the features identified by him can still be recognised. An animal with its back-turned head in the top right-hand corner of the panel stands with one hindleg in the bottom left corner and one foreleg which reaches into the bottom right corner. Its tongue extends into interlace with a triquetra below its head, then loops around the body to form another Stafford Knot terminating in a loose end with a clubbed tip between its legs. The area below this panel is completely plain.

D (narrow): (i) This face is dominated by a spiral scroll, incomplete at the top, with seven alternate facing volutes. The stem begins without a root in the lower left corner. The lowest volute is a simple spiral; the rest terminate in a tri-lobed leaf or flower form. Buds spring from the stem to fill the spandrels above the second volute, and above that each spandrel is filled with a triple leaf-flower springing from the stem or sometimes from the outside of a volute. (ii) The plain area below the scroll contains a runic inscription, of which part is still legible, though there is no trace of a second line as in early drawings (see face A, above).

Inscription The runes are cut in the broad lower border of the lower fragment of the shaft. A single line of runes, without framing lines, is found on the left-hand side (face D, Ills. 151, 173) and the front of the stone (face A, Ills. 152, 170). There is now no trace of lettering on the right-hand side or the back, and it seems likely that the visible inscription is complete, in so far as it can be deciphered. Nineteenth-century drawings show much more text than can now be seen, but are of very doubtful value (Page 1999, 134–6). The stone is very weathered, especially on the left-hand side. What remains reads:

On the left-hand side (D) the first two runes 'æf' are relatively clear. The stave of the next is visible, with damage at its top presumably masking the arms of 't'. After this comes another stave, with what seems to be an upper arm and tick, as of 'a' or 'o', though the lower arm cannot be seen. After that it is very difficult to distinguish carved lines from weathering. Page (1959a, 239) thought that it might be possible to trace an 'r' next, but he was not sure. He thought there might then be another vertical stave.

On the front (A) there are fragments of, probably, two runes before 's'. The first may be 'a' or 'æ'. Surface-wear makes the second very difficult, but Page (1959a, 240) suggests 'r' as most likely.

Adcock (1974, I, 241–2) compared the interlace on face B with a late eighth- to early ninth-century cross-shaft at Hauxwell in north Yorkshire (Lang 2001, 120–2, ills. 311–14), while the knot on face C was compared to one on face B of a shaft of the same date from Cundall/Aldborough (Lang 2001, 93–7, ill.181 : a similar variation on a pattern D loop). Similar pattern layouts, again using the same loop, are found on the Anglo-Scandinavian cross-shaft Leeds 1, panel Ciii (Ill. 491), and on the cast of a lost stone, Ilkley 5 (Ill. 378), which could in part be as early as the eighth century. On Crofton 2 (Ill. 182), a related pattern is turned into animal interlace. These parallels suggest that the Collingham 2 shaft stands within the pre-Viking Anglian tradition. The animals are a stylised, contoured and flattened version of the animals found on the Anglian cross-shafts Ilkley 2 and 3 (Ills. 357, 359, 361–4). Collingwood (1932, 51) noted one motif of a beast with its head stooping down between upraised forelegs repeated from Cundall/Aldborough (Lang 2001, face 1D, ill. 184). The connections with the earlier Anglian monuments together with the flattening and stylisation suggest a date towards the end of the Anglian period, or even within the early Anglo-Scandinavian period. This shaft represents the beginning of a mixing of styles, but the influence of Anglian traditions and local taste is apparently very strong, as Lang (1978c, 15–16) noted in coming to the same conclusion.

Inscription The inscription is presumably to be taken as a simple memorial, æft– –swiþi 'in memory of –swiþ', where –swiþ represents the end of a feminine personal name. If this was the complete inscription, as appears probable from the remains on the stone, it would be the most minimal representative of the group of vernacular memorials discussed above (Chap. VIII, pp. 79–84). Typologically it would stand between the more developed members of that group and the simple name-stones familiar, especially, from the monasteries of the north-east coast.

The details of the short text are very unclear. The form of the preposition is problematic. If, as it appears, the rune following 't' was 'a' or 'o', then it cannot have been æfter, or the rare æfte found at Thornhill (p. 261). Nor was it æftær, an attested early form, nor æftæ or æfti, which might be readily explained. æftar would be an extraordinary form, without obvious parallel. Perhaps the reading of 'a' or 'o', in a very worn part of the stone, is wrong. Or perhaps the difficult text of the Bewcastle cross should be compared. On the main inscribed panel of that monument Page read 'æft alcfri–', apparently 'in memory of Alcfri[þ?]'. This tends to suggest an Old English æft, parallel to the well-attested Old Norse aft, and that may be what was on the Collingham stone. On the other hand, some doubts must attach to a text that, as Page (1960, 52–3 [1995, 64–5]) has demonstrated, was interfered with in the nineteenth century.

Since it is not clear where the personal name starts, and there are doubts about all of the characters before 's', it is not profitable to speculate on the prototheme. By contrast the runes '–swiþi' are quite clear. The inflection –i is unusual and notable: it may be an early instrumental (Page 1999, 230; cf. Campbell 1959, § 587; Dahl 1938, 123); alternatively it could perhaps be a false archaism introduced by a carver for whom –swiþe would have been normal. If –i were a genuine, contemporary form, it would tend to suggest a date before c. 900. If it were an archaism, of course, it could be later. It is notable that the placement and layout of the inscription does not suggest that it must be integral to the monument: it could possibly be a later addition.

Probably late ninth century

Haigh 1856–7, 512–17, pls. 2, 3; Haigh 1861, 41, pl. II, fig. 5; Pettigrew 1864, 309–10, 312–13, pl. 21, fig. 4; Stephens 1866–7, xxviii, 390–1, figs. on 391; Haigh 1869–70, 198–205, and fig.; Haigh 1873, 253–4; Taylor, I. 1879, 12n; Smith and Cheetham 1880, 1979; Stephens 1884a, 183; Stephens 1884b, 121–2, fig. on 122; Allen 1885, 342, 346, 348; Allen and Browne 1885, 353; Browne 1885c, 157; Sweet 1885, 128; Bradley 1888, 279; Frank 1888, 42; Allen 1889, 207, 222; Du Chaillu 1889, I, 192; Allen 1890, 293, 297, 298, 299, 303–4, 305, 309; Allen 1891, 159, no. 1; Clemen 1892, 89; Stephens 1894, 10; Viëtor 1895, 19–20, pl. V, figs. 13, 14; Hempl 1896, 175, fig. 1; Hempl 1897, 62; Viëtor 1897, 60–1; Chadwick, H. 1901, 82; Speight 1902, 448, and pl.; Allen 1903, 239, 244, nos. 619, 632; Stevens 1904, 48; MacMichael 1906, 359–60; Morris 1911, 46, 154–5, 549; Collingwood 1912, 128; Collingwood 1915a, 157–9, 267, 269, 272, 275, 276, figs. e–h on 158; Collingwood 1915b, 300, 328; Browne 1916, 74; Collingwood 1916–18, 47–8, fig. 26; Howorth 1917, I, 80, 91–2, pl. facing 92; Brown 1921, 268; Morris 1923, 154–5; Brøndsted 1924, 65n, 70, 192–4, 223–4, 232, 237–8, fig. 142; Collingwood 1927, 25, 50–1, 61, 126, 128, 130, fig. 31; Collingwood 1932, 51; Gardner 1935, 36–7, fig. 25; Pontefract and Hartley [1936], 16, and fig.; Brown 1937, 153–7, 234, fig. 16; Arntz 1938, 88; Kendrick 1938, 201, pl. XCI.1; Dauncey 1941, 123; Mee 1941, 105; Gardner 1951, 32, fig. 39; Holmquist 1951, 8–9; Fisher 1959, 68, 76, pl. 30b; Page 1959b, 400; Pevsner 1959, 165–6; Marquardt 1961, 36–7; Taylor, H. M. and Taylor, J. 1965, I, 166–7; Wilson and Klindt-Jensen 1966, 105, fig. 48; Page 1969, 34; Page 1971, 176; Page 1973, 29, 31, 134–6, 138–42, 146, 160, 217, 219, fig. 24, pl. 13; Schmidt 1973, 74; Adcock 1974, I, 241–2, 256, 259n, II, pls. 108, 109; Cramp 1978a, figs. 1.1(l), 1.2(p); Lang 1978c, 15–16, pl. Ic; Bailey 1980, 195, fig. 57a; Cramp 1984, 134, 163; Higgitt 1986b, 131, 133; Bailey and Cramp 1988, 145, 151; Richards 1991, 126; Page 1995, 39, 165, 191; Lang and Wrathmell 1997, 379; Page 1999, 29, 31, 130–6, 138, 155, 228, 230, figs. 38, 39; Hadley 2000a, 265; Okasha 2001, 88

[1] The following are general references to the Collingham stones: Browne 1880–4a, lxxiv; Browne 1885c, 157; Allen 1887, 85; Allen 1890, 293; MacMichael 1906, 359–60; Morris 1911, 155; Pevsner 1959, 20, 165–6; Faull 1981, 212, 218; Ryder 1991, 19; Ryder 1993, 17, 147; Cambridge 1995b, 144n, 145.