SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

12 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
in Pomerania, the one carved in ivory and the other in
elk horn. 34 The main features of this style are the
billeting of the body of the animals and the luxuriant and
fleshy foliation of the motif - whether an animal or
interlace pattern or merely an acanthus tendril. Details
of the style are already evident in the preceding Jellinge
style 3 5 and I have no doubt that it grew directly out of that
style in the Vikings' homeland.
The two finest Manx stones decorated in this style ­
indeed two of the finest stones in the island - are Braddan
135 (108) and 136 (roo). The first of these, illustrated in
fig. 2, bears on one side the inscription in runes:
Irorleifr hnakki reisti kross penna ept Fiak, son sinn,
bronurson. Hafrs.
"Thorleif 'nape' erected this cross after Fiac, his son,
brother's son of Hafr."
The cross is free-standing, 212 em. high, and has a ring
head. One edge of the shaft bears the runic inscription
and the other edge bears an animal with its head at the
bottom; it has a sinuous billeted body which is interlaced
with the lappet of the animal and produces a series of
semi-foliate offshoots. The two main faces are filled by
a series of animals with double contours and billeted
bodies, heavily involved in interlacing limbs and lappets.
The other stone is broken half way up the shaft, the top
half is missing. This, like the previous stone, has an
inscription on one side:
Oddr reisti kross penna ept Frakka, hour sinn, en
Po(rbjprn sonr ...)
"Odd erected this cross after Frakki, his father, but
Thojrbjorn son ...)"36
One of the main faces of the cross is decorated with
animal ornament similar to that on the other Braddan
.libid., pI. LIV-LVI.
.6 ibid., pl. XXXVII.
• 6 The last letters were recorded in the nineteenth century, but are now
missing. Olsen, op, cit., 191, suggests that the inscription continued "... of
N.N. made this cross".