Reconsideration of "The Rood"

After I finished writing my last Blopost here, I walked downstairs to make a coffee, and immediately realised I’d missed a whole area of reflection. I’d taken a completely negative view of the contextualisation implicit in The Dream of the Rood, missing the (very obvious) positive aspect, and the necessary nuance (and risk) involved in any attempt at contextualisation.

False Contextualisation: The Dream of the Rood

 The Dream of the Rood (available here) is a classic piece of Anglo-Saxon poetry, from the 8^th or 10^th centuries. Rood is the old English word for ‘rod’ or ‘pole’, and came to be used of the Cross. The poem narrates a dream sequence, in which the author sees a tree being cut down, and eventually used in the crucifixion of Christ.

The Church in Wales

We visited a Church of Wales service while on holiday. There was an assortment of locals and tourists. No singing, because of Covid; just the liturgy. A lay-leader explained to us, that they had a tradition of supporting pilgrims, passing through, some as corpses for burial, to the holy island of Bardsey, which was known as a “thin place”, to be near the resurrection.