Other Ancient Remains.
At Whalley are three fine specimens of reputed Saxon crosses. Tradition says they commemorate the preaching of Paulinus in 625. Although they have no remaining inscriptions, their obelisk form and ornaments of fretwork were used in common by the Norwegians, Saxons, and Danes.
In Winwick Churchyard is a great fragment of a crosshead, consisting of the boss and two arms. On the arms are a man with two buckets and a man being held head downwards by two ferocious-looking men, who have a saw beneath them, and are either sawing him asunder or are preparing to saw off his arms. This evidently relates to Oswald, for he was dismembered by order of Pemba, and the buckets might refer to the miracle-working well which sprang up where his body fell.
At Upton, Birkenhead, is a sculptured stone bearing a Runic inscription. Dr. Browne takes the inscription to mean: "The people raised a memorial: Pray for Aethelmund."
At West Kirby is a nearly complete example of a hog-backed stone. The lower part is covered on both sides by rough interlacing bands, and the middle and upper part with scales, the top being ornamented with a row of oblong rings on each side, with a band running through each row of rings. The work at the top, which looks like a row of buckles, is very unusual. The stone, which is of harder material than any stone in the neighbourhood, must have been brought from a distance, and in the memorial of some important person, probably Thurstan, as we find the name Thurstaston in the locality. There is also at West Kirby a flat slab on the face of which a cross is sculptured. This is very unusual in England, though not rare in Scotland and Ireland.
At Hilbree, the island off West Kirby, there is a cross of like character.
Principal Rhys says that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Norsemen were in the habit of largely recruiting their fleet in Shetland and the Orkneys, not merely with thrales, but with men of a higher position. They infused thus a certain amount of Pictish blood into the island. The "Shetland bind"—Oghams distributed over the island, in such places as Braddan, Turby, Michael, Onchan, and Bride. The Norwegian language, says Mr. C. Roeder, was spoken practically from 890–1270; it was introduced by the Shetland and Orkney men, and from Norway, with which connection was kept, as shown by the grammatical structure of the Runic stones in the island, which falls between 1170 and 1230. It was the only language of the rulers, and used at "Thing" and Hall, resembling in this old Norman barons and their counts in King William the Conqueror's time.
The spirit of the Norsemen lives in the legal constitution of the Government, an inheritance that produced a free Parliament, and particularly in its place-names. The sea fringe, with its hundreds of Norse rocks, creeks, and forelands, and caves, have left imperishable evidence of the mighty old seafarers, the track they took, and the commingling and fusion they underwent in blood and speech, and their voyages from the Shetlands and Western Isles.
Hammer.
Brooch.
Fibula of White Metal from Claughton.