Dream of the Rood

The Dream of the Rood is one of the earliest Christian poems in the corpus of Old English literature and an example of the genre of dream poetry. Like most Old English poetry, it is written in alliterative verse. Rood is from the Old English word 'pole', or more specifically 'crucifix'. Preserved in the 10th century Vercelli Book, the poem may be as old as the 8th century Ruthwell Cross, and is considered one of the oldest works of Old English literature.

A part of The Dream of the Rood can be found on the 8th century Ruthwell Cross, which was an 18 feet (5.5 m), free standing Anglo-Saxon cross that was perhaps intended as a 'conversion tool'. At each side of the vine-tracery are carved runes. On the cross there is an excerpt that was written in runes along with scenes from the Gospels, lives of saints, images of Jesus healing the blind, the Annunciation and the story of Egypt, as well as Lating antiphons and decorative scroll-work. Although it was torn down and destroyed during a Protestant revolt, it was reconstructed as much as possible after the fear of iconography passed. Fortunately during that time of religious unrest, those words that were in the runes were still protected in the Vercelli Book, so called because the book is kept in the Italian city of Vercelli. The Vercelli Book, which can be dated to the 10th century, includes twenty-three homilies interspersed with six poems: The Dream of the Rood, Andreas, The Fates of the Apostles, Soul and Body, Elene and a poetic, homiletic fragment.

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