16 Background: “The Dream of the Rood”

DREAM OF THE ROOD

Author unknown

Approximately seventh to eighth century

The Dream of the Rood dates from at least the early eighth century, when eighteen verses of it were carved on the Ruthwell Cross in runic letters. The Ruthwell Cross, in southern Scotland, stands over eighteen feet tall and includes Gospel scenes, Latin inscriptions, and elaborately-carved vines in addition to the fragment of The Dream of the Rood. Like other Anglo-Saxon poems, The Dream of the Rood uses alliteration rather than rhyme; it is divided into half-lines (with a pause, or caesura, in the middle) that vary between short rhythmic sections and longer hypermetrical sections (with more syllables). The 156 lines of the complete poem are found in the tenth century Vercelli Book, a manuscript rediscovered in 1822, in the cathedral in Vercelli, in northern Italy. Just as the Ruthwell Cross is meant to appeal to a variety of audiences, the poem presents a Christian subject (the Crucifixion) in a way that would appeal to the traditions of a warrior class only recently converted to Christianity in some cases. Warriors followed a lord (who could be a king or a chieftain), who distributed gold and other rewards to loyal retainers. When the Rood (Cross) speaks of its history, from tree to loyal retainer of Christ (his liege lord/Lord), it describes Christ as a warrior who climbs up onto the cross freely and bravely to defeat sin. An Anglo-Saxon audience could not help but see a comparison to Odin/Woden sacrificing himself on the Tree of Life (Yggdrasil) to gain the secret of the runes, the very language in which the fragment is written. The poem is also a dream vision, a popular genre in medieval English.  When the dreamer awakes, he longs to rejoin his companions, who have gone on to feast at the Lord’s table in heaven: a situation similar to that found in the Anglo-Saxon poem The Wanderer. Near the end, the dreamer refers to Christ saving those who “suffered the burning,” an indirect reference to the popular Harrowing of Hell, found in the (now) apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and in numerous medieval works, from mystery plays to Dante’s Divine Comedy. In it, Christ descends to Hell after the Crucifixion, breaks open the gate, scatters the demons, and frees all the righteous souls, leading them to heaven. The reference survives to the present day in the Apostle’s Creed, which states that Christ “descended into hell” (or in some recent versions “descended to the dead”). The poem therefore celebrates Christ’s victories in battle, eschewing the later medieval focus on Christ’s suffering and image as the lamb of God.

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