Scandinavian-Britain

CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 2O$coming worm-twist, and animal forms becoming Scandinaviandragons, and bearing the swastika and othersymbols not used by the Anglians. This series isfollowed, late in the tenth century, by another of moreadvanced skill in carving, such as we have seen musthave been developed in Northumbria under Mercianinfluence after the fall of the independent Vikingmonarchy the round-shafted crosses of Northamptonshireand Cheshire, imitated in Yorkshire and thentravelling north by the same great route to Penrithand Gosforth, and turning into distinctly Norse formswith illustrations from the Edda poems, such as wehave noticed (p. 201) on the Heysham "hogback."This continuous development from the modelsfound at Carlisle is not likely to have been the workof Halfdan's Danes, who in 875 came there only toplunder and destroy. Their successors, however, whoshared in the distribution of lands and settled in theAnglicised parts of Cumberland may have becomeconverted under Guthred and so led to imitate themonuments of the burnt priory, and no doubt thenatives, who would be employed as carvers, knewthem well. But as we go west from Carlisle we findmore and more Scandinavian and Irish elements inthe art of the period, so that a somewhat sharp distinctioncan be drawn between the 'Anglo-Danishstones of the Yorkshire type and those of West Cumberland;and we are led to conclude that the bulk ofthe Cumbrian Vikings were of a different race fromthe Danes of Northumbria, akin rather to the Norseof Man, Galloway, Ireland and the Hebrides. And