ABSTRACT
The runes on the Ruthwell Cross, which are considered ‘early and Anglian’ by Ray Page (1999: 148), were carved at some time between c. 650 and c. 750, probably in the fi rst to the two campaigns in which the Ruthwell Cross was raised in the 730s. These runes deliver a speech from the borders of inhabited vinescroll, as if the standing Ruthwell Cross were indeed a World-Tree Cross that is speaking to us. From this early version of prosopopoeia, or dramatic personifi cation, come the remarkable poems of The Dream of the Rood tradition.
