NOTES AND QUERIES March 1991 beginning of folio 206' corresponds to Patro- Judgement, as well as craftsmen, musicians, logia Latina CII, col. 478C (... el innocentiam, acrobats, animals and monsters. However, the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020 in eo Christus suscipitur), commenting on most interesting of the sculptures for Anglicists Matthew 18:5. What is missing is the end of the are those of scenes from the legend of Sigurd, exegesis of the Gospel for the nineteenth Sun- including Sigurd's fight with the dragon Fafnir, day after Pentecost, all of the exegesis of the the smith Regin at his anvil, and Sigurd bringing Epistle for the feast of the Archangel Michael, Regin the dragon's heart. As the earliest literary and part of the exegesis of that day's Gospel. reference to the dragon-killing is very likely that Unlike the printed text, the Worcester manu- at Beowulf884-97 (where it is related as a feat of script does not write out the lection in full at the Sigurd's father, Sigemund), these Spanish sculp- beginning of the exegesis, but simply provides tures have a special link with Old English studies. the liturgical date, the specification of the read- Apart from Beowulf, the legend of Sigurd also ing, and the lection phrase by phrase as it is figures in the Old Norse Edda and Vplsunga commented upon, picked out in majuscules, as saga, the Middle High German Nibelungenlied already noted, and by marginal signs (see lines 4 of c. 1200 (as the legend of Siegfried), and early and 5 of Bishop's Plate XVI). With allowances medieval sculpture from Winchester, Lanca- made for this difference between the manu- shire, Cumberland, Norway, and Sweden. It has script and the printed text, it is clear that the been claimed that it appears too in sculpture missing material would have occupied two from Cambridgeshire, Leeds, and the Isle of folios. Man, and that elements of it influenced Irish In May 1939 Vaughan commented that 'The legends of Finn mac Cumhaill and Welsh book has been bound twice before - the second legends of the poet Taliesin. Apart from their binding, which I pulled to pieces, was probably importance for Anglo-Saxon literature and 13th century work'. Since the surviving part of archaeology, therefore, the sculptures at San- the manuscript shows no signs of maltreatment, giiesa are of interest for Germanicists and even we may presume that the leaves missing Celticists as evidence for one of the most vigor- between folios 205 and 206, as also the leaf ous of northern legends. missing between folios 98 and 99, noted by The fundamental discussion of the Sangiiesa Bishop, were lost at the time of one of the bind- sculptures, and the basis for the present note, is ings. Whether it was carelessness in binding or Cynthia Milton Weber's 'La portada de Santa some other circumstance which caused the Maria la Real de Sangiiesa', Principe de Viana, large loss of the manuscript's first six quires is xx (1959), 139-86. Principe de Viana (Pam- something that we cannot guess. plona, 1940- ) is the leading journal for the JOYCE HILL study of theart and history of Navarre. However, University of Leeds for some reason it reaches few British libraries, and Cynthia Milton's paper has not had the attention from Anglo-Saxonists it deserves. As its account of early medieval sculpture in Britain and Scandinavia is now also seriously out of date, BEOWULF 875-902 AND THE it is hoped the present note will prompt a new SCULPTURES AT SANGUESA, SPAIN study by a specialist in Scandinavian art with SANGUESA, situated 25 miles east-south-east access to the appropriate libraries. It has to be of Pamplona and about 30 miles from the said too that Miss Milton's paper is not always French border, is a quiet country town in the accurate, especially on geography: for example, Spanish province of Navarre. Its finest monu- it locates certain Manx towns and villages (Jurby, ment is the church of Santa Maria la Real, 'Malem', Ramsey, and 'Maughola') in Ireland whose south doorway is encrusted with a profu- (pp. 168-9). So a fresh note on the Sangiiesa sion of twelfth- and early thirteenth-century sculptures is in order. sculpture (see Plate 1). Amongst the subjects The facade at Sangiiesa is arranged as follows. represented are Christ in Majesty, the Virgin On each side of the door are three jambs, five of and Child, the twelve Apostles, the symbols of them with elongated figures of the Virgin and the Evangelists, the Fall of Man, and the Last saints showing the influence of twelfth-century

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Plate I NOTES AND QUERIES March 1991 Chartres. Above the door is a tympanum with different form) Thidriks saga. Regin the smith representations of Christ in Majesty, the Last was the tutor of Sigurd, and reforged Odin's Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020 Judgement and the Twelve Apostles. Around sword Gram for him. With the sword Sigurd kills the tympanum are three mouldings, forming a the dragon Fafnir and roasts its heart for Regin to pointed arch lined with human and allegorical eat, but burns his finger while prodding it to see if figures. Above the arch are spandrels filled with it is cooked, and having sucked it discovers he a medley of carvings. These include, on the left, a understands the language of birds. The birds tell dog with a huge tongue lolling out, an Old Testa- him Regin is his enemy, and that whoever eats the ment king with two women, Adam and Eve heart will be the wisest of men; he therefore kills plucking the forbidden Fruit, two men wrestling, Regin with the sword and eats the heart himself. a serpent swallowing a woman, a knotted strap, The parallels between Sigurd's discovery of the ox of St Luke, a basilisk, and two snuffling knowledge by burning himself while cooking a creatures with wings and snaky tails; and, on the dragon's heart, and similar stories of Finn (cook- right, a bird pecking its back, a spearman, a ing a magic salmon from the river Boyne), and hound chasing a hart, a griffin taking flight, a Gwion Bach (stirring a cauldron of inspiration large quadruped with a woman's face, five for the witch Ceridwen, who lived in Bala Lake), winged monsters, one with a 'Chinese grin' who was later reborn as Taliesin, are worth (sonrisa china), and five carvings relating to the noting as a comment on the diffusion of this Sigurd legend. Above the spandrels are two story: cf. T. F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and blind arcades containing statues of the apostles Mythology (Dublin, 1946), 329-34; Trioedd and, in the centre of the upper row, a Christ in Ynys Prydein, ed. Rachel Bromwich (Cardiff, Majesty surrounded by the symbols of the Evan- 1978), 308-9, and Daithf 0 hOgain, An File gelists. (Baile Atha Cliath, 1982), 233-42. It is more The work in the facade, by several hands, likely Norse tradition influenced Celtic than vice dates from various periods; the jumble of sculp- versa. Even so, the thumb-sucking motif is far ture in different sizes and styles within the span- from limited to Norse and Celtic; see Kenneth drels is amongst the clear evidence for Jackson, The International Popular Tale and reconstruction, carried outperhaps about 1230. Early Welsh Tradition (Cardiff, 1961), 115-16, J. M. Lacarra, in his Historia del Reino de 132, where Jackson quotes Sir Ifor Williams's Navarra en la edad media (Pamplona, 1976), date of the ninth century for the Welsh text; cf. Sir 266, suggested rebuilding followed flood Ifor's Chwedl Taliesin (Caerdydd, 1957), 18- damage: the church stands by the river Aragon, 19,22-4. The poem Finn utters after burning his swollen each spring with meltwater from the thumb is certainly ninth century; see Early Irish Pyrenees. However, we are here concerned with Lynched.GerardMurphy(Oxford,1956),234. the Sigurd sculptures rather than the facade as a If (besides the dubious evidence of the Franks whole. Various oddities of their style fortunately Casket) the evidence of Beowulf and the Burwell allow us to date them fairly exactly. The bulging workbox cited below can be accepted, this ele- eyes and calligraphic decoration of the winged ment of the story may have been known in monsters and certain of the Sigurd figures show Britain as early as the seventh century. Irish the hand of the 'Master of San Juan de la Pefia', scholars tend to assume the tale entered Celtic who left work dated to 119 7 in the cloister of San tradition from Norse, but the possibility that it Pedro el Viejo in Huesca. He worked as well at came from England should not be ruled out. If it churches at Agiiero (24 miles north-west of did, it could be contrasted with the themes dis- Huesca) and Ejea de los Caballeros (34 miles cussed in the late James Carney's 'The Irish Ele- west), besides the monastery of San Juan de la ments in Beowulf in his Studies in Irish Pefia itself, 30 miles north-north-west of Literature and History (Dublin, 1955), 77-128. Huesca. All of these are in Aragon. In Navarre The Sigurd sculptures at Sangiiesa are here one of his sculptures also occurs at Puente la described following Cynthia Milton's analysis Reina, 13 miles south-west of Pamplona. (166-70). The first (see Plate 2) is that of The story of Sigurd is told in the tenth-century Sigurd, presenting his right profile, and plunging Fdfrtismdl and Eiriksmdl in the Edda, and the a broad-bladed sword upwards into the throat of thirteenth-century Volsunga saga and (in a the dragon Fafnir with his right hand while his March 1991 NOTES AND QUERIES Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020

Plate 2 NOTFS AND QUERIES March 1991 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020

Plate 3 March 1991 NOTES AND QUERIES left arm is thrust up to the elbow between its large spherical fruits, intertwined branches, and

jaws (gripping its tongue?): Milton, pi. 24; cf. leaves like fish-tails.Cynthi a Milton claimed to Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020 L. M. de Lojendio, OSB, Navarre Rornane identify one 'fruit' as a bird (178, pi. 25), (Paris, 1967), pi. 54. The close resemblance of thereby suggesting another incident from the the Sanguesa dragon-slaying to that at Hyle- Sigurd legend. But the bird is not discernible to stad in Norway proves the Sanguesa sculptor's the present writer. source was visual, not narrative: cf. Peter Finally, near the top of the left spandrel is an Anker, L'Art Scandinave (Paris, 1969), i, interesting carving of a spurred and stirruped pi. 222. rider, his head lost and his righthan d holding an Next is the scene of Sigurd bearing Fafnir's object also lost (probably a sword), whose heart to the smithy of his tutor, Regin. This horse is trampling a nude prone figure with a appears below the sculpture of Sigurd and the large head, protuberant eyes, and long, neatly dragon in the present facade, and consists of combed moustache and beard. The prone three separate pieces of sculpture, whose origi- figure stares downwards as the horse's front nal arrangement may not have been the present hoof rests on the back of his head (see Plate 6). one. Nor is the figure of Regin by the Master of This scene has been variously identified. Cyn- San Juan de la Pena (Milton, 166 n. 153). At thia Milton cites a picture of St James on horse- present Sigurd, whose head has been lost, back trampling Moors in Santiago de approaches Regin from behind, bearing in both Compostela, Cathedral Archive, Codex hands an object which must be the dragon's Tumbo A, and (much closer to the Sanguesa heart. The sculpture of Regin at his anvil is well figure) an illustration of Catalan origin showing preserved. He is shown in left profile, stripped a crusader trampling Moors in the Ripoll Bible, to the waist as he raises a hammer with his right fo. 342. The exotic face of the fallen man could hand and grips the piece of metal he is forging be that of a Moor. However, she also suggests a with tongs in his left. His head is sharply indi- possible identification with Sigurd on the horse vidualized: bald, bearded, and with a long, Grane, killing the traitor Hunding when he powerful face (see Plate 3; Milton, pi. 24, threw himself down on the river bank to drink. Lojendio, pi. 56). To the left of him is a figure She notes that although the sculpture is not by (now headless) similar to that holding Fafnir's the master of San Juan de la Pena, it has similar- heart; it has been identified from the Hylestad ities with that of Regin, and could be by the carving in Norway as Sigurd holding the bel- same hand (173-4, pi. 18). lows (now lost at Sanguesa) in Regin's forge; cf. The above does not exhaust the Scandinavian Anker, i, pi. 219. The similarity between the links of the Sanguesa doorway. One curious Spanish and the Norwegian scenes of Regin and feature is that of the knotted beaded strap. Two Sigurd at the forge is remarkable. of these appear at Sangiiesa, one in four loops in The next scene is that of Sigurd testing the the upper part of the left spandrel, the other, of sword Gram. This is shown in a figure to the left two intertwined straps in six loops, at the bot- of a woman-faced quadruped (pror-mbly the tom of the right spandrel (Milton, pi. 29; Devil) which is itself to the left of the scene of Lojendio, pi. 54, 58). This is familiar from Irish Fafnir's slaying. Sigurd must have been holding and Scandinavian art; none the less, Cynthia his sword (now lost) with his right hand, while Milton suggests the fact that it exists elsewhere gripping the scabbard in his left; he appears in Spain (at the abbey of Leyre, near Javier, and about to fight the quadruped. But this is an acci- at Santillana to the west of Santander on the dent of reconstruction, as the woman-faced north coast of Spain) implies it need not here be beast is by a different hand, and originally bore due to direct influence from beyond Spain. no relation to the sculptures now each side of it Volume iv/2 of the Catdlogo Monumental de (see Plates 4 and 5; Milton, pi. 20). Navarra, ed. Maria Conception Garcfa Gainza The five pieces of sculpture described above et al. (Pamplona, 1980- ), which will describe are easy to identify. Two other possible scenes the town of Sanguesa, is at press. But it would be from Sigurd's story are more problematic. On surprising if even so detailed a survey as this the left side of the facade, in the lower part of exhausted the possibilities of the Sanguesa the spandrel, is a small carving of a tree with doorway for researchers. The figures on the NOTES AND QUERIES March 1991 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020 March 1991 NOTES AND QUERIES Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020

Plate 5 10 NOTES AND QUERIES March 1991 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020 March 1991 NOTES AND QUERIES 11 jambs, linked with the influence of Chartres and Ramsund stone in the parish of Jader, and 1, 2, Autun (45 miles west-south-west of Dijon in 4, and 5 on the Gok stone, both in the Swedish Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020 Burgundy), also have parallels at the churches province of Sodermanland south-west of Stock- of San Martin in Segovia and San Vicente in holm; and 1 on the Drafie stele and Manads- Avila; the tympanum has its closest links with bladet monolith, from Sweden, and the the south of France; and the upper arcades have Norderhov block from near Honefoss, a few their antecedents in Saintonge, the region north miles north of Oslo. There is a drawing of the of the Gironde estuary in south-west France, Ramsund stone in Anker, i. 202. and at Angouleme a little way to the east. It is a Cynthia Milton also lists scenes 2, 4, and 5 structure of great complexity, quite apart from from the eleventh-century cross shaft at Halton, the Germanic and Nordic aspects of its art dis- near Lancaster; in sculptures built into a cussed here. twelfth-century wall at Gosforth, on the Cum- In her analysis Miss Milton describes the berland coast south of Whitehaven; and in close parallels between the Sanguesa figures monuments from the Isle of Man, with unidenti- and sculpture in Norway and Sweden, noting in , fied evidence from Michael; scenes 1, 4, and 5 particular that all five of the following scenes from Jurby; 1, 4, and 5 from Andreas; 4 from appear in wooden carvings from the church at Maughold, near Ramsey; and 1 and 5 from Hylestad in south-west Norway, approximately Malew, in the south of the island. Finally, she midway between Oslo and Stavanger, though refers to a sculpture of Sigurd in the crypt of the Hylestad doorway is now in the university Freising Cathedral, some 20 miles north of museum, Oslo. (The present writer has tried, Munich. where possible, to give locations and current It has not been possible to provide any kind name-forms of the Norwegian and Swedish of systematic updating of the above analysis places below.) from resources in Pamplona libraries. How- Cynthia Milton sets out the Hylestad paral- ever, the fundamental account of Sigurd in lels thus: Hilda Ellis Davidson, 'Gods and Heroes in Stone', The Early Cultures of North-West 1. Sigurd kills the dragon. Europe, ed. Sir Cyril Fox and Bruce Dickens 2. Regin and the sword. (Cambridge, 1950), 121-39, with important 3. Sigurd tests and shatters the sword. references to her earlier research on this sub- 4. The tree and the speaking birds. ject, is worth noting for scepticism as to Sigurd's 5. The horse Grane. presence on the Leeds cross; compare the On this analysis, scenes 1,2, and 3 appear at an popular account in Mary Anderson, History old house at Gaulstad, near Drammen to the and Imagery in British Churches (London, south-west of Oslo; 2, 3, 4, and 5 at Vegusdal, 1971), 59. Dr Ellis Davidson also rejects (at some 40 miles south-south-east of Hylestad; 1 137) any link between the horse on the and 4 at Versos, between the great lakes of detached right side of the Franks Casket (at Vanern and Vattern in southern Sweden; and Florence) and Sigurd's horse Grane mourning 'other scenes' at Austad, seven miles south of his dead master, though this identification is still Hylestad. These carvings, all in wood, date from made, for example in R. M. Wilson's study cited about 1200, but derive from older models. below, and Henry Mayr-Harting, The Coming Not all are in situ. The Norwegian Sigurd of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (Lon- scenes are discussed in Anker, i.413-15, who don, 1972), 221-2 (and cf. 232-3). More bases his account on Roar Hauglid, 'Setes- positively, Dr Ellis Davidson mentions (135-6) dalens stavkirkeportaler', in Universitetets a figure, who may represent Sigurd, plunging a Oldsksamlings Arbok (1937), and Martin weapon into the underside of a dragon on the Blindheim, Norwegian Romanesque Decorative bronze cylindrical workbox of the mid-seventh Sculpture 1090-1210 (London, 1965), 52. century from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Bur- Cynthia Milton goes on to list earlier ex- well, nine miles east-north-east of Cambridge. amples of these scenes, more distant in style, in She refers as well (126) to an Old Norse verse, runic monuments of the tenth century and later: perhaps of the early eleventh century, describ- 1 and 4 on the Leeds Cross; 4 and 5 on the ing scenes of dragon slaying and roasting on a 12 NOTES AND QUERIES March 1991 tapestry in the hall of St Olaf, King of Norway; the mighty deeds, far journeys, feuds, and the verse is a neat piece of evidence for the crimes of Sigemund, the tribes of giants he and Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020 Sigurd story in both art and literature. The his nephew Fitela killed, and the fame he English and Manx carvings surveyed by Dr achieved after death by killing the dragon, 'the Ellis Davidson are also discussed in three guardian of the treasure'. articles I have not seen: H. M. Taylor, 'Halton Crosses', Archaeological Journal, cxxvii Under the gray stone the son of the prince (1971), 287-8; D. M. Wilson, 'Manx Memorial had ventured alone, a daring deed, nor was Stones of the Viking Period', Saga-Book of the Fitela with him. Yet it was granted to him that Viking Society, xviii (1971), 1—18; and James his sword pierced the gleaming dragon, and Lang, 'Sigurd and Weland in pre-Conquest stood fixed in the wall, the noble weapon. The Carvings from Northern England', Yorkshire dragon lay dead from the murderous stroke. Archaeological Journal, xlviii (1976), 83-94. Sigemund loads the dragon's bright treasure- If Sigurd and the dragon appeared in needle- hoard into his ship as the dragon dissolves in its work at the court of King Olaf, they may also own heat (wyrm hat gemealt), and the poet have appeared in stone at the court of his comments on Sigemund's reputation amongst Danish contemporary King Cnut, as suggested men that he was 'by far the most famous of in Martin Biddle, 'Excavations at Winchester adventurers amongst nations for his brave 1965', The Antiquaries Journal, xlvi (1966), deeds'. 308-32, at 329-32. Biddle describes the dis- It is worth emphasizing that if this passage on covery by. archaeologists at Winchester of a the dragon-killing and other legends is original stone carving thought to show Sigmund, to Beowulf as composed about 750, it is the Sigurd's father, as a bound man tearing out with oldest literary evidence for what we know as his teeth the tongue of a wolf attacking him. This Vplsunga saga; hence its importance. In his The incident occurs in chapter 5 of Vplsunga saga; Lost Literature of Medieval England (London, although the saga in its present form is said to 1970), 18-19, from which the above transla- have been compiled 'not later than c. 1260-70, tion is quoted, R. M. Wilson claims (despite the probably in Iceland, though possibly in Nor- scepticism of Hilda Ellis Davidson cited above) way', Biddle speaks of 'references to the Vol- that whether this passage is a late one brought to sung legend in Beowulf, Widsith and WaldereEngland by the Vikings or not, the right panel of in Old English [in the last two, presumably the the Franks Casket may be evidence that the allusions to the Burgundian king Guthhere, story was known in Northumbria about 700. d. 436/7], and in the fragmentary tenth-century Finally, C. L. Wrenn in his edition of Beowulf Norse poem Eiriksmdt. He argues that the (London, 1973), 47, argues that, although scene comes from a frieze erected in 1016-35 Sigurd's killing of the dragon in the Norse by Cnut at the Old Minster, Winchester, to accounts is transferred to his father Sigemund commemorate his ancestors. As the original in Beowulf, 'it is quite as likely that the Old frieze may have been 80 feet long (a kind of English, being set down several centuries Bayeux Tapestry in stone), it might have before the Norse accounts, has the older tradi- included scenes from the Sigurd legend like tion, and that it is right in that sense in attribut- those at Sanguesa, as well as those mentioned ing the dragon-slaying to Sigemund rather than by St Olafs poet. The frieze was destroyed to his son'. Wrenn clearly did not regard the when the Old Minster was demolished in 1093- passage as a post-Viking interpolation. 4. Biddle also cites proof for the knowledge of (Another account of Beowulf, Sigurd and the Vplsunga saga in art from England, Norway, dragon, in G. V. Smithers, The Making of 'Beo- and Sweden, but is cautious about evidence for wulf (Durham, 1961), 14-16,1 have not seen.) the Sigurd legend from the Isle of Man. The above material indicates that knowledge This evidence for the knowledge of Vplsunga of the legends found in the Sanguesa sculptures saga in royal circles at Winchester casts new was widespread in England, Norway, and light on the locus classicus for the legend in Sweden. But the problem of how these tales English poetry, Beowulf 815-902. This relates reached Spain remains. Here Cynthia Milton's how one of Hrothgar's retainers at Heorot told explanation is very plausible. Sanguesa was March 1991 NOTES AND QUERIES 13 founded at a crucial bridgehead on the Navar- listed in Santos Garcia Larragueta, El gran rese-Aragonese border shortly before 1131, in priorado de Navarra de la orden de San Juan de Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/nq/article-abstract/38/1/2/1379885 by Yale University Law School user on 17 March 2020 which year the King of Navarre, Alfonso I 'the Jerusalen (Pamplona, 1957), i.96, 269, Dr Battler', made town and church over to the mili- Garcia himself points out (248) how little we tary order of Knights Hospitallers or Knights of know of the Hospitallers in Navarre at this date, St John, who remained in charge of its defence especially of their intellectual culture, for which until 1351; cf. Lojendio, 153, and Jose Goni almost the only scraps of evidence are the Gaztambide, Historia de los Obispos de Pam- sanjuanista churches and hospitals (many in plona, i (Pamplona, 1979), 372-3. (Another ruin) which still dot Navarre long after the frontier relic, the castle of Javier 3 miles from Order's libraries and other treasures have Sangiiesa, reappears in history as birthplace of vanished. We are lucky that the Sangiiesa sculp- St Francis Xavier in 1506.) tures have survived centuries of weathering, Now, the Knights of St John were an interna- flood, and warfare to demonstrate the links tional order who maintained especially strong between the twelfth-century knights who had links with Scandinavia; and Cynthia Milton them carved, and the audience of Beowulf. points out the Crusades had already brought ANDREW BREEZE Scandinavia into contact with southern Europe University of Navarre, Pamplona in the persons of Sigurd Jorsalafak, King of Norway (1109-10), and Karl the Dane, Alfonso's kinsman; while Sangiiesa's position on the new pilgrim route to Santiago de Com- SINDRUMBEGRUNDEN IN EXETER postela via Puente la Reina and Burgos, sup- BOOK RIDDLE NO. 26 planting the old route hugging the north coast of Spain, ensured the passage of thousands of RIDDLE No. 26 in The Exeter Book of Old pilgrims from northern Europe through the English poetry is interpreted as 'a sacred codex'. town. It describes in the first person various stages in the manufacture of a book - obtaining and pro- As a trouble spot and dangerous posting fre- cessing the parchment, writing the text, encas- quented by pilgrims, Sangiiesa was no doubt ing the gatherings within jewelled boards - and well-sited for its fighting men to learn and value it ends by commending the saving powers of the tales of Sigurd's prowess. But there may be sacred writings themselves. Lines 5b-7 contain more to the sculptures than that. Sangiiesa in the statement the twelfth century was a new town as well as a garrison town, full of newcomers making a Heard mec sit>)?an living by supplying bread, wine and lodging to snaS seaxses ecg. sindrum begrunden; pilgrims. Many of these inhabitants were fingras feoldan...' foreigners, including the Gascons, Provencals, of which the widely accepted translation is: Poitevins, Auvergnats, Jews, and other immi- 'Afterwards the hard edge of the knife cut me, grants who staged a peaceful 'invasion' of with all impurities ground off; fingers folded Navarre (punctuated with massacres) between me.. .'.2 the late eleventh century and the thirteenth. At 1 least two of the Volsung cycle monuments, at C.oWilliamson (ed.), The Old English Riddles of the Winchester and Halton, were apparently put up •Exeter Book' (Chapel Hill, 1977), 83; ecg is emended from to commemorate ancestors; the Halton shaft manuscript ecge. Williamson departs from ASPR in number- ing this Riddle 24. stands in a manor owned by Earl Tostig, who 1 R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, rev. edn, claimed descend from Sigurd via Harald Blue- 1954), 297. The same sense with different wording is found tooth and Ragnarr Hairybreeks, as Dr Ellis in the translation which replaced Cordon's, that of S. A. J. Davidson points out (134). It is tempting to Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, 1982), 374: 'a hard knife's edge dissected me, buffed clean of blemishes. Fingers associate the Sangiiesa sculptures with some folded me...'.' With all impurities ground off,... apparently Norwegian knight of St John living south of the with reference to the sharpness of the seaxses ecg' is again Pyrenees some time in the late twelfth century. proposed in Williamson, 213, citing the support of Bos- If no such soldier-monk appears amongst the worth-Toller s.v. seax. Williamson also makes reference to L. K. Shook, 'Riddles relating to the Ango-Saxon Scrip- comendadores of the encomienda of Sangiiesa torium', in R. CDonnell (ed.), Essays in Honour of Anton

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