The Corpus: Kirby Hill 09

Volume 6: Northern Yorkshire

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Current Display: Kirby Hill 09, Yorkshire North Riding

Overview

Object type: Part of grave-marker [1] [2]

Measurements: after Rowe 1870) H. 25.4 cm (10 in) W. 25.4 cm (10 in) D. 12.7 cm (5 in)

Stone type: Unobtainable

Plate numbers in printed volume: Fig. 15; Ills. 358–9

Corpus volume reference: Vol 6 p. 133

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Present Location

Lost; missing by 1974

Evidence for Discovery

Found in 1870 built into the north face of the north wall of the nave, near the top (Rowe 1870, 241). Possibly still extant in 1941, when Mee noticed two stones carved with horses (see also Kirby Hill 10 (All Saints, Kirkby-on-the-Moor) ).

Church Dedication

All Saints

Present Condition

Unknown. Rowe's drawing shows it cut at the top and broken at the base.

Description

(After Rowe's illustration.)

A (broad) : A plain edge moulding flanks a panel containing an L-shaped ribbon dragon whose body is pierced by a sword, complete with hilts. The lower extremities of the creature are bound by rough loops. In the upper left corner the base of a strand splits into a pair of volutes.

B (narrow) : Not recorded.

C (broad) : A plain edge moulding flanks a panel, at the top of which is a pair of rectangles each containing a smaller rectangle and a central dot. Below this is a horse, shown in profile facing left with a double outline.

D (narrow) : A run of step pattern.

Discussion

This may have been part of a larger cross, as Rowe suggested. Its iconography supplements that of no. 2 above and belongs to the Sigurðr story. The horse of face C may be Grani and is paralleled at Halton, Lancashire (Collingwood 1927a, 159–60, fig. 191), and York Minster 34 (Lang 1991, 71–2, ills. 145, 147). The pierced dragon is Fáfnir, the knots of the torso being a feature of York Minster 34. The Northumbrian and Manx carvings usually show Sigurðr holding the sword up beneath the dragon, though there is a close parallel in an incised carving from Tanberg, Buskerud, Norway and a Viking-age axe from Vladimir-Susdal, Russia, where the sword is shown in the manner of Kirby Hill 9 (Ploss 1966, 64, pls. 7a–b, 25). The Scandinavian connection is very strong.

Date

Late ninth to mid tenth century

References

Rowe 1870, 241, fig. 7; Allen 1891, 170 (3); Mee 1941, 125; Lang 1974a, 14–15, fig. 3; Lang 1976, 86; Smyth 1979, 271; Bailey 1980, 121, fig. 19a; Lang 1991, 71; Bailey 1996a, 92, fig. 48a; McKinnell 2001, 344

Endnotes

[1] The following are general references to the Kirby Hill stones: Lunn [1867], 13; Allen and Browne 1885, 353; Allen 1890, 293; Bulmer 1890, 734; Hodges 1894, 195, 201; Morris, J. 1904, 212, 420; Thompson 1908, 113; Stapleton 1923, 7, 10, 53; Morris, J. 1931, 212, 417; Pontefract and Hartley [1936], 126; Mee 1941, 125; Taylor and Taylor 1965, I, 355; Pevsner 1966, 210; Morris, R. 1989, 161; Muir 1997, 96–7.

[2] The following is an unpublished manuscript reference to no. 9: BL Add. MS 37552 no. XIV, item 631 (Romilly Allen collection).