Runes on Christian Monuments

In England the script is found most prominently on Christian stone monuments. A tall Northumbrian cross carries, in runes running along its sides, verses closely related to a surviving Old English poem in which the cross itself speaks about the crucifixion. Another cross of the same region carries a runic memorial inscription. The script was not felt to be pagan, and there is no sign that its use had to be defended. The best known object is a small whalebone box carved with scenes that mix a Germanic smith's legend, the twins suckled by a wolf, the Magi bringing gifts and the sack of Jerusalem, with runic captions in Old English and one panel in Latin written in runes. Whoever made it moved between those worlds without apparent difficulty.

Runes also entered manuscript culture. Scribes used individual runes as abbreviations for the words that were their names, riddles in a poetic collection turn on runic letters, and one poet wove the runes spelling his name into the closing passages of his poems so that they could be read as a signature. That is a literate, learned use of the script, quite different from cutting a name on a brooch, and it continued until the Latin alphabet displaced the practice after the Norman Conquest.