Antiquitates Manniae, or, A collection of memoirs on the antiquities of the Isle of Man / edited by J.G. Cumming.

Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Antiquitates Manniae, or, A collection of memoirs on the antiquities of the Isle of Man / edited by J.G. Cumming. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    6 Such a simple ornament is found on the Manx crosses as a border to the other devices carved upon the stone. I may in- stance the well-known so-called Dragon crosses in Braddan churchyard^ the Niel Lumgun cross at Kirk Michael, and the fragment found at the old chapel in the Calf of Man. In the last case the cord forms also a portion of the decoration. Figures i and ii are reduced from rubbings of the Braddan crosses. This straight cord would next become waved, and, by being made to return upon itself, would form the fret which in various forms occurs upon works of art of all ages. This decoration in the forms so constantly used elsewhere, is not to be found on the Manx crosses, though an approximation to a fret-like ap- pearance is produced on some of them by drawing the lines which divide the strands of a simple cord, or of two cords twisted together, somewhat thick. This character is seen in figure II, which is copied from the Oter Dragon cross at Kirk Braddan. The same form occurs also on the large Joalf cross at Kirk Michael, on the top of the large cross at the gates of the churchyard of Kirk Maughold, and on the cross taken from the bell turret of Kirk Maughold, and described in the next memoir. The mystic Tau pattern (see figure iv) so copiously used on monuments, crosses, architecture, and MSS. of all ages, was very largely employed also by the Manx artists on the Runic crosses. We find it on the Ufeig cross at Kirk Andreas, the Thorlaf cross at Ballaugh, the cross in the Treen Chapel at Jurby, on fragments in the churchyard waU at Kirk Michael, and on a fragment in the garden of the vicarage at Jurby. Again, the C pattern and a spiral appearance were produced by a still further involution of the simple cord, as in figures v and XXX, taken from the Niel Lumgun cross at Kirk Michael. In MSS. this has been largely used, as may be seen in Mr. Westwood^s paper on “Early British, Anglo-Saxon, and Irish Ornamentation”, in the fortieth part of the Archceological