Standard abbreviation: Dream
Other titles: none
Clavis numbers: ECCA 173
Category: Relic History
Related literature: Legend of the Holy Rood Tree
Compiled by Alexander D’Alisera, Boston College and Samuel Osborn, Boston University.
Citing this resource (using Chicago Manual of Style): D’Alisera, Alexander, and Samuel Osborn. “Dream of the Rood.” e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha. Accessed DAY MONTH YEAR. https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/dream-of-the-rood/.
Created May 2020. Current as of January 2024.
1. SUMMARY
The Dream of the Rood (Dream) is an Old English poem found most completely in 156 lines of alliterative verse in the late tenth-century Vercelli Book. Dream is also partially attested in carved runes upon the monumental eighth-century Ruthwell Cross, and another reference to the poem is inscribed into the silver lamina of the early eleventh-century Brussels Cross Reliquary. The poem’s appearances within and upon disparate physical media from eighth-century Northumbria to eleventh-century Wessex serve to map the known edges of its importance among the diverse communities of early medieval England.
Dream is a radically unique retelling of the canonical Passion story, presented primarily from the viewpoint of a personified Rood that is as emotionally, physically, and historically involved in the ordeal as Christ himself. The Vercelli text begins with an anonymous narrator, traditionally known as the Dreamer, recalling a vision of a Tree that he dreamt of in the middle of the night. Swiftly, the Dreamer realizes that the Tree is none other than the Rood—the very Cross upon which Christ was crucified.
The Rood speaks to the Dreamer, reminding him that it was once just one of many trees in the forest, before it was traumatically hewn by “strong enemies” and conscripted into serving as Christ’s instrument of torture and death. As the Rood recounts the events of the crucifixion, it reveals how Christ—the heroic warrior-king, God Almighty—silently and defiantly rushed “with great zeal to climb up on me,” and how, while bearing Christ, it resisted the urge to slay all its enemies, break, or bend. The Rood itself suffers the bloody wounds of the crucifixion, and both Christ and Rood are mocked together as gloom descends upon the hill. All of creation weeps at the sight of their savior’s corpse.
Soon, eager warriors arrive and remove Christ from the bloody Rood. They proceed to dig Christ a grave, carved from “shining stone,” and they sing mournful obsequies before leaving his corpse behind. Others proceed to cut down the Rood and bury it in a nondescript hole; some time later, Christ’s friends uncover the Rood and adorn it with gold and silver.
The Rood then commands the Dreamer to venerate it and spread its story to all of earth’s peoples, and it reminds him that Christ honored it above all other trees, just as he honored his mother Mary above all other women. The Rood invokes “Adam’s deeds of old” and Christ’s salvific action before explaining the forthcoming events of Judgement Day, and it promises the Dreamer that, as a faithful believer, he has nothing to fear. With the Rood’s monologue concluded, the Dreamer finds himself alone in the dreamscape and no longer fearful; he ends the poem by eagerly praying to the Rood, confident and hope-filled in his newfound eschatological knowledge.
Named historical figures and characters: Adam (patriarch), Jesus Christ, Mary (Virgin).
Geographical locations: Golgotha.
2. RESOURCES
“Brussels Cross.” Wikipedia.
“Ruthwell Cross.” British Library.
“Ruthwell Cross.” Undiscovered Scotland.
“Ruthwell Cross.” Wikipedia.
Ruthwell Cross “Visionary Cross Viewer.” A multi-institute project that matches an in-browser exploration of a detailed 3D rendering of the Cross, built from scans of the original object, with pithy contextual descriptions for all of the panels and Dream runes.
“Vercelli Book.” Wikipedia.
“Vercelli Book.” Fondazione Museo del Tesoro del Duomo e Archivio Capitolare.
“Vercelli Book.” British Library.
Roberto Rosseli Del Turco. The Digital Vercelli Book. A digital facsimile of the manuscript.
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
3.1 Manuscripts and Editions
3.1.1 Old English
Brussels Cross Reliquary, St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral, Brussels (11th cent.) ~ processional cross bearing an inscription from lines 44 and 48 of the Dream of the Rood
Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare di Vercelli, MS CXVII (the Vercelli Book), fols. 104v–106r (10th cent.)
Dickins, Bruce and Alan S.C. Ross, eds. The Dream of the Rood. Methuen’s Old English Library. London: Methuen, 1934.
Kemble, John M., ed. and trans. “The Holy Rood; a Dream.” Pages 83–93 in The Poetry of the Codex Vercellensis, with an English Translation. London: Ælfric Society, 1843–1856.
Krapp, George Phillip, ed. “Dream of the Rood.” Pages 61–685 in The Vercelli Book. Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932.
Ó Carragáin, Éamonn. Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of the Rood Tradition. London and Toronto: The British Library and the University of Toronto Press, 2005 (transcription of the Brussels Cross Reliquary, pp. ).
Swanton, Michael, ed. The Dream of the Rood. Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies. 1970. New revised edition. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1987 (edition pp.).
Thorpe, Benjamin, ed. “The Holy Rood, a Dream.” Pages 100–104 in Appendix B (vol. 2) of Appendices to a Report on Rymer’s ‘Foedera’ Intended to Have Been Made to the Late Commissioners on Public Records. Edited by Charles Purton Cooper et al. 5 vols. in 3. Printed, London: Commissioners of the Public Records, 1834–1837. Published, London: Public Record Office, 1869.
3.1.2 Futhorc Runes
Ruthwell Cross, housed in the Ruthwell Church, Dumfriesshire, Scotland (8th cent.) ~ features runes corresponding roughly to lines 39–42, 44–45, 48–49, 56–59, and 62–64
Howlett, David. “Inscription and Design of the Ruthwell Cross.” Pages 71–93 in The Ruthwell Cross: Papers from the Colloquium Sponsored by the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University, 8 December 1989. Edited by Brendan Cassidy. Index of Christian Art: Occasional Papers 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Stephens, George. The Ruthwell Cross, Northumbria. London: John Russell Smith, 1866 (includes two excellent lithographic sketches of the Cross, completed within a generation of the Cross’s reconstruction).
Swanton, Michael, ed. The Dream of the Rood. Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies. 1970. New revised edition. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1987 (transliteration of the Ruthwell Cross runes, pp. ).
3.2 Modern Translations
3.2.1 English
Bradley, S.A.J., trans. “The Dream of the Rood.” Pages 158–63 in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: An Anthology of Old English Poems in Prose Translation. London: Everyman’s Library, 1982.
Clayton, Mary, trans. “The Vision of the Cross.” Pages 159–73 in Old English Poems of Christ and His Saints. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 27. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Crossley-Holland, Kevin, trans. “The Dream of the Rood.” Pages 200–204 in The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
D’Alisera, Alexander, and Samuel Osborn, trans. “The Dream of the Rood.” Pages 110–29 in vol. 3 of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Edited by Tony Burke with Brent Landau. 3 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016–2023.
Hamer, Richard, trans. “The Dream of the Rood.” Pages 163–75 in A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse: Revised and Expanded Edition. 1970. 2nd ed. London: Faber & Faber, 2015.
Kennedy, Charles W., trans. “A Dream of the Rood.” Pages 144–48 in An Anthology of Old English Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1960.
Liuzza, R.M., trans. “The Dream of the Rood.” Pages 54–57 in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: One-Volume Compact Edition. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2015.
Williamson, Craig, trans. “The Dream of the Rood.” Pages 253–58 in The Complete Old English Poems. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
3.3 General Works
Cassidy, Brenden. “The Later Life of the Ruthwell Cross: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present.” Pages 3–34 in The Ruthwell Cross: Papers from the Colloquium Sponsored by the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University, 8 December 1989. Edited by Brendan Cassidy. Index of Christian Art: Occasional Papers 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Chaganti, Seeta. “Vestigial Signs: Inscription, Performance, and The Dream of the Rood.” PMLA 125, no. 1 (2010): 48–72.
Cherniss, Michael D. “The Cross as Christ’s Weapon: The Influence of Heroic Literary Tradition on The Dream of the Rood.” Anglo-Saxon England 2 (1973): 241–52.
Coker, Matthew D. “The Dream of the Rood and the Function of Hypermetric Lines.” Notes and Queries New Series 66, no. 1 (2019): 8–19.
Farrell, Robert T., and Catherine Karkov. “The Construction, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction of the Ruthwell Cross: Some Caveats.” Pages 35–47 in The Ruthwell Cross: Papers from the Colloquium Sponsored by the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University, 8 December 1989. Edited by Brendan Cassidy. Index of Christian Art: Occasional Papers 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Frank, Roberta. “Germanic Legend in Old English Literature.” Pages 82–100 in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Edited by Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Hawk, Brandon W. Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 30. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.
Hurley, Mary Kate. “The Dream of the Rood.” Pages 1–5 in The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain. Edited by Siân Echard, Robert Rouse, Helen Fulton, Geoff Rector, and Jacqueline Ann Fay. Oxford: Wiley, 2017.
Mac Lean, Douglas. “The Date of the Ruthwell Cross.” Pages 59–70 in The Ruthwell Cross: Papers from the Colloquium Sponsored by the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University, 8 December 1989. Edited by Brendan Cassidy. Index of Christian Art: Occasional Papers 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Ó Carragáin, Éamonn. Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of the Rood Tradition. London and Toronto: British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2005 (includes comprehensive bibliography).
Orchard, Andy. “The Dream of the Rood: Cross-References.” Pages 225–53 in New Readings in the Vercelli Book. Edited by Samantha Zacher and Andy Orchard. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 4. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
Orton, Peter R. “The Technique of Object-Personification in The Dream of the Rood and a Comparison with the Old English Riddles.” Leeds Studies in English New Series, no. 11 (1979–1980): 1–18.
Paz, James. Nonhuman Voices in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Material Culture. Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017.
Remley, Paul G. “The Vercelli Book and Its Texts: A Guide to Scholarship.” Pages 318–415 in New Readings in the Vercelli Book. Edited by Samantha Zacher and Andy Orchard. Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 4. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009 (includes extensive bibliography, pp. 357–78).
Schlauch, Margaret. “The Dream of the Rood as Prosopopoeia.” Pages 23–34 in Essays and Studies in Honour of Carleton Brown. No editor? New York: New York University Press, 1940.
Scragg, D. G. “The Compilation of the Vercelli Book.” Anglo-Saxon England 2 (1973): 189–207.
Sisam, Celia. The Vercelli Book: A Late Tenth-Century Manuscript Containing Prose and Verse, Vercelli Biblioteca Capitolare CXVII. Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 19. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1976.
Treharne, Elaine. “The Form and Function of the Vercelli Book.” Pages 253–66 in Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo- Saxon Literature and Its Insular Context in Honor of Éamonn Ó Carragáin. Edited by Alastair Minnis and Jane Roberts. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 18. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.
Woolf, Rosemary. “Doctrinal Influences on the Dream of the Rood.” Medium Ævum 27, no. 3 (1958): 137–53.
Zacher, Samantha. “Vercelli Book.” Pages 1–7 in The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain. Edited by Siân Echard, Robert Rouse, Helen Fulton, Geoff Rector, and Jacqueline Ann Fay. Oxford: Wiley, 2017.