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Hogbacks: Christian and Pagan Imagery on Viking Age Monuments

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Hogbacks: Christian and Pagan Imagery on Viking Age Monuments Hogbacks: Christian and pagan imagery on Viking Age monuments Alby Stone investigates the origins, symbolism and possible meaning of these unusual Viking carved stones. OGBACKS ARE ARRESTING monuments. Their unique Hdesign makes them interesting as artefacts in their own right, but they also raise important questions with regard to the iconography of both paganism and Christianity in northern England during the Viking Age. These impressively solid- looking house-shaped sculptures, with their characteristic curved ridges, are found mostly in the north of England, with a handful of others scattered around Figure 1: Lowther hogback (after Collingwood) Ireland, Scotland, Wales, southern England and Scandinavia in areas associated with settlers from Scandinavia monuments at all, as there is nothing to crosses both superfluous and difficult to and Viking-controlled Ireland. There are connect them with burials or the dead - achieve. Similar animals occupy the several distinct types of hogback, of though that has not prevented any gable-ends of hogbacks at Heysham in varying size but most are around 1 to 1.5 number of authorities describing them as Lancashire, Lowther in Cumbria (the metres in length, though their bulk such. For instance, Collingwood refers to smaller hogback), Burnsall in Yorkshire, makes them seem bigger. All conform to hogbacks as ‘recumbent tombstones’ and elsewhere. Others, such as the Saint’s the same basic pattern: rounded or (Collingwood 1927: 164]; while Foote Tomb at Gosforth, have end-beasts that squared gable-ends and side-panels with and Wilson call them ‘tomb-covers’ are little more than disembodied heads. slightly convex surfaces rising from a (Foote and Wilson 1980: 152). Bailey Bailey sees parallels with end-beasts on roughly rectangular base, often with a notes that the hogbacks at Lythe in Irish metal shrines, and with animal distinct upward-curving ‘roof’ like Yorkshire occur alongside ‘a series of heads on houses and churches in contemporary boat-shaped houses in small crosses whose shaft outlines exactly medieval Scandinavia and northern Scandinavia. Decorative styles and motifs fit the undecorated gable-ends of the Europe (Bailey 1980: 97). But the end- are derived from Scandinavia. Their hogbacks’. Noting that ‘similar crosses beasts do not seem to be a specifically origins and purpose are matters for are known elswhere’, he goes on to Christian motif - there are countless debate, but one authority believes them suggest that ‘it is difficult to escape the similar designs all over ancient Europe. to have evolved from the house-shaped conclusion that some of the hogbacks The so-called Giant’s Grave at Penrith in stone shrines marking saints’ graves in were part of composite monuments with Cumbria comprises several hogbacks and early medieval Ireland: head and foot stones, similar in two tall crosses, but the arrangement arrangement to the grave-slabs and end- seems to be simply a mixture of hogbacks ‘The hogback was developed in the tenth stones which are known from York and crosses, rather than a deliberately century in northern England, apparently Minister cemetery. It is even possible composite arrangement. Despite this, in Norwegian or Gaelic-Norse settlement that some of the large crosses were both the hogbacks and crosses share areas. It represents an adaptation of the combined with hogbacks into composite motifs that hint at their being the work earlier stone shrine involving a change of monuments’ (Bailey 1980: 99-100). of the same sculptor(s). shape and function. It takes on something of the appearance of Something of the sort is perhaps hinted One variety of hogback found in contemporary buildings’ (Bailey 1980: at on the so-called Saint’s Tomb from Cumbria and Lancashire, at the western 96). Gosforth in Cumbria, which has a limit of hogback distribution (though Crucifixion scene sculpted on one end. one example occurs at Sockburn in The same writer goes on to reject the However, not many hogbacks fit in with Durham), includes human figures possibility that hogbacks marked saints’ this analysis. At Brompton in Yorkshire a among the decorative motifs. graves, on the grounds that there are ‘too group of hogbacks are gabled with Interestingly, these tend to incorporate many of them’ (Bailey 1980: 97). powerful-looking animals, evidently pagan iconography. One, a bear-gabled Indeed, they do not seem to be funerary muzzled bears, which would make fitted hogback at Heysham, appears to show a 16 3rd Stone 33 January-March 1999 the ‘Christ’ is rather flimsily bound with dangling loops or tassels; below his arms snake-heads point toward his torso. The absence of a cross does not contradict that interpretation, as several authentic scenes of the Crucifixion of the period omit the cross altogether, using the rigidly cruciform body of Christ to suggest the structure. Here however, the arms are not stretched out rigidly as they are on other Crucifixion scenes of the Viking Age, but bent. The supposed bonds, meanwhile, are barely deserving of the name: they consist of a loop at either side of the figure’s head, with the loose strands dangling limply around the forearms. Snakes appear on contemporary Crucifixions in Yorkshire, Figure 2: Lowther hogback including the church of St. Mary Castlegate in York. Does the York Minster hogback show the Crucifixion? Well, there is no compelling reason to identify this figure, with its arms spread wide, ropes or bonds, snakes and circular object, with Christ alone. This could just as easily be a completely pagan scene. It has been identified as a scene from the Sigurd Figure 3: Sockburn hogback story, though not very convincingly. It could even be Loki, bound with the gods’ insubstantial fetter, shown with the scene from the Sigurd legend so popular Fenrisúlfr - though it has been vaguely snakes set to drip venom onto him as in medieval Scandinavia. A common interpreted as Daniel in the lions’ den, or punishment for his part in the death of motif which is also a popular pagan Adam naming the animals in Eden (1). Baldr (Sturluson, trans. Faulkes 1987: element is the World Serpent, found 52). This explanation has been suggested with sailing warriors and footsoldiers and Another hogback at Heysham has four for other similar figures, such as the separated by an indistinct but possibly human figures, two at each end of one Bound Devil on a slab at Kirkby Stephen female figure, such as that found at side panel, who are apparently holding in Cumbria (fig. 5). This ‘devil’ is tightly Lowther (fig. 1). On the other side of the up the top edge. It is hard to see how bound and its arms are down by its sides same hogback the motif occurs again these can be any other than the four (2). Many Viking Age sculptures depict with a group of human figures. The dwarfs who support the four corners of the crucified ‘Christ’ tied, rather than figures are poorly preserved, but a nearly the sky according to Snorri Sturluson’s nailed, to the cross. This tradition seems identical group is found on a smaller Prose Edda. Their names - Austri, Vestri, related to the myth of Baldr, who is tied hogback at Lowther (fig. 2), including Nor›ri and Su› ri - indicate that they to a tree when he is killed by the blind one figure that seems to be one-eyed, represent the four directions (Sturluson, god Ho› r ’s mistletoe spear (Sturluson, perhaps a rare representation of O› inn. trans. Faulkes 1987: 12). The two sets of trans. Faulkes 1987: 48-49). There is an The larger Lowther hogback - like one at human figures are separated by various obvious parallel with the blind centurion Gosforth (the Warrior’s Tomb, so called animals. This is undoubtedly a who spears Christ at the Crucifixion; but because it has a warrior carved into the cosmological scene. The other side shows also with the myth of O› inn, speared as gable), which shows two armies meeting a vaguely similar scene, but with one he hangs as a sacrifice to himself on the - may depict Ragnarok, the ultimate central figure supporting the sky. Taken World Tree (Davidson 1964: 51). battle between the Norse gods and the together, the two sides have been Snakes do not figure in Baldr’s death, monstrous forces of chaos. The associated with the poem Voluspá, but the World Tree’s roots are said to be resemblance of these images to those on though it is difficult to see how the four gnawed by the serpent Ni› hoggr 8th century pagan picture-stones on the sky-supporting figures and the horizontal (Sturluson, trans. Faulkes 1987: 19). Swedish island of Götland has been human and animals carved into the recognised [Bailey 1980: 137]. decoration above them could be It should also be pointed out that the interpreted as a scene from Ragnarok ‘outstretched Christ’ image is generally ‘One side of a hogback at Sockburn (fig. (Collingwood 1927: 170). found on or as part of crosses - as at 3) shows a number of rather fierce- Kirklevington in Cleveland (fig. 6); looking animals: the main one is bound, At York Minster (fig. 4) there is a Gosforth and Penrith; and Thornton and a human is placing his hand in its hogback that purportedly shows a Steward in Yorkshire (fig. 7). Often, mouth. This can only be Tyr and the Crucifixion scene. There is no cross, and Christ’s body is the cross. Sometimes, as 3rd Stone 33 January-March 1999 17 at Brigham in Cumbria, Christ’s head merely surmounts the cross or forms the upward arm. One exception is the unfinished Crucifixion on the so-called ‘Saint’s Tomb’ at Gosforth: but here it is impossible to guess what the artisan originally intended to do with the stone.
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