II. Additional Observations on the Runic Obelisk at Ruthwell; the Poem of the Dream of the Holy Rood; and a Runic Copper Dish found at Chertsey. By John M. Kemble, Esq. in a Letter to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S. Secretary

It gives me very sincere pleasure to be able to offer you undeniable confirmation of the justice of my views respecting the Runic Obelisk at Ruthwell. I would not, indeed, have you suppose that I ever entertained the slightest doubt of having seized the general sense of the inscription; but, taking into consideration the fragmentary state of the legend itself, as well as the abrasion of many characters, which justified, indeed rendered necessary, a somewhat bold method of proceeding, I could not venture to hope that I had entirely escaped errors, which are in some degree inseparable from conjectural criticism. From the peculiar form of the Runic characters, which consist principally of straight lines and angles, they are especially liable to confusion when the slightest portion is abraded by age: and this is the case with the Ruthwell inscription in a very great degree. The task of restoring readings so injured by lapse of time, though not a hopeless, might fairly be considered a difficult one; and in this conviction, I was prepared to admit the probability that better versions than my own might at some time be substantiated. Circumstances have, however, now placed within my reach a complete, though modern, copy of the whole inscription, parts of which it cost me so much serious labour to decypher: and it is highly satisfactory to discover that in almost all the details of interpretation, I was proceeding upon sound and safe grounds. This naturally affords a gratification of a far higher character than the mere selfish pleasure derived from any personal feeling: and it is in the hope that some of your readers may be induced to bestow attention upon a system whose results are so strongly confirmed by further experience, that I again bring the subject before your notice.