"Church History" a story which proves that the belief in the magic power
of runes lingered on in England after Christianity had become the
professed religion of the people. It takes a good while to lose
superstition that has been with people for a long, long time. Because
Christianity condemns anything like magic, the use of the runes,
associated with it, gradually went out. The Irish missionaries in the
North of England taught the people there a beautiful kind of handwriting
from which the English handwriting of later times was formed. The
"Lindisfarne Gospels" are written in the earlier Irish rounded
characters. In a copy of St Bede's "Church History" written after
A.D. 730, a more pointed hand is used. If we want to write fast, we do
not write so round as when we write slowly. Afterwards, in the tenth
century, the English began to use the French style of writing.

The runes were sometimes used as ordinary letters, without any thought
of the old connection with magic. So the great Christian poet, Cynewulf,
wrote his name in runes, which is how we know him to be the author of
some of the poems we have been considering.

The portions of the "Dream of the Holy Rood" which are on the Ruthwell
Cross (see Chapter IV) are carved in runes. There is a small sword in
the British Museum with runes on it, which was found in the Thames.

In connection with the runes I want to tell you of two old poems, which
may be related to each other. One is known as "The Wife's Complaint,"
the other as, "The Husband's Message." The first of them is apparently
spoken by a woman who laments her hard fate, her husband having gone
over the sea, away from her. She is imprisoned in an old earthen
dwelling under an oak; she has no friends near, and she tells how vain
were the vows of love exchanged between her and her husband. Now the