A NEW (AND CERTAIN!) IDENTIFICATION OF THE DEGSASTAN BATTLE

Runic inscription on the Ruthwell Cross

One of the problems with scholarly and amateur pursuit of the location of the famous Dark Age Degsastan battle site has been a stubborn insistence on this being an actual place-name.  It does not seem to have occurred to anyone to suggest that we are, in fact, simply talking about a standing stone or a cross.

I have been guilty of the same poor judgment.

But I remained unsatisfied with the "default" site for this place: Dawston in Liddesdale.  Firstly, the etymology was sketchy.  It could be made to work, but was always less than satisfactory.  Secondly, Aedan's attack on Bernicia must have been a naval operation, as to think that he marched far inland from Dalriada, leaving his forces no option of realistic retreat is, frankly,  preposterous.  Thus we are looking for someplace on or near the coast.

I had become aware of the Ruthwell Cross in Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire some time ago.  But it was only when I read more on this monument that I learned it included a name thought to contain the first element of that found in Degsastan.  In runes, the relevant name reads "DAEGISGAEF."

Now, to my eye this is not a name - or, to be more accurate, it contains a name, but also another word.  Anglo-Saxon gaef is 'gave', and this immediately made me think of a standard dedicatory formula found on stones since Roman times (cf. Latin dedit, 'gave').  Had the carver started out meaning to write "Daeg's Gift (with gift being AS gyft), and then either made an error or had to adjust for space requirements, gaef is pretty obviously "gave."  So we end up with an intended 'Daeg gave [the cross].'

But even if Daegis is the proper form of the name, this is not difficult to bring into accord with the Degs/as- of Degsastan. 

I have this from one of the top experts on Anglo-Saxon runes:

"dægis would certainly be possible as a genitive form of a personal name Dæg (or of the noun dæg "day"). While gæf might conceivably be the past tense form of "give" (although one would expect gaf), it would not be a possible form of the noun "gift", and confusing the two would be a very odd sort of error for a carver to make."

Dr Martin Findell
Assistant Professor in Historical Linguistics
Room C8 Trent Building
School of English
The University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham

If I'm right here - and no other translation seems to make any sense - then this cross is Daeg's Stone/Degsastan.  This is not far from the famous Mabon sites.

The stone would also be close to Cynfarch's Mote of Mark and Llywarch Hen's Caerlaverock [1].

The stone may well have been erected there AFTER the battle - as historical entries in these later annals can easily contain anachronisms.  In other words, the battle may have been fought there and the cross erected at a later date.  The place then came to be referred to as the location of the cross. The cross is usually dated to the 7th-8th centuries, with the date of the Degsastan battle being 603 A.D.

I have the following on the Ruthwell Cross from Brythonic place-name expert Alan James:

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I've had a lifelong interest in the Ruthwell Cross, and have tried to keep up-to=date with scholarly discussions of it, and I have to admit that I've never paid any attention to that fragmentary group of runes - nor, for a very long time, do I think anyone else has.

They are - or were - decipherable on a broken portion of the reassembled shaft, in the narrow band on the south edge of the east side, alongside the uppermost panel of entwined foliage. According to Dickins and Ross 1934, 4, the runes represent DÆGISGÆF, though on the only transcription I can find is that by Duncan back in 1833, which shows no sign of the final F. The series apparently ends at the bottom of that portion of the band, there isn't room for any more runes after the final one, whether it's Æ or F; on the other hand, the panel has broken or eroded away at the top, so there could have been - indeed probably were - runes preceding D.

The Cross is in the same region where I live, about 40 miles way, but there wouldn't be much point in my going to look at it, what's need is for some very state-of-the-art technology to check what can still be traced, though of course it's worn a lot since Duncan made his transcription. But the main point is, we can't be at all sure that what remains comprises a single word, a couple of words, or part of a word, or part of one and all of another.

I agree with Martin Findell. I'd only add that, in personal names, -geofu 'gift' is a common second element. That's the Anglian form: Northumbrian variants are to be found in the glosses on the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Durham Rituals, including -geafu, and even -gæafa, though that was certainly abnormal, and, as I've said, there doesn't seem to have been space for any final vowel.

I'd also observe that, while Dæg- is, as I've said, a common first element in OE personal names, it (or indeed any other first element) isn't ever followed by a genitive inflexion. If it were a personal name, something like *Dægagæf might be expected (cf. Dægga, which does occur in A-S Charters). So I at least share your doubt about it being a personal name. The initial dæ might be the termination of a 3rd sg. preterite verb, cf. [on]geredæ, but if it is, we can't have any idea what it might be; the remainder of the inscription, -gisgæf might be some word with the familiar 'ge-' prefix in an early form, but (whether or not the -f was actually present), what that word could have been is a complete mystery.

Still, I agree that Dægis does look intriguingly similar to the personal name inferred in Degsastan, though note that the OE versions of that name show a weak genitive, Dægisan-. And, as Dr Findell says, at a stretch, -gæf might conceivably be 'gave', so it might just possibly be the fortuitous remnant of a dedicatory inscription, '... Dægis gave'. But that's of course assuming that the D was the beginning of a word. It would be an odd location for such an inscription (cf. Bewcastle, where it's prominently on the front). And note that the current consensus of scholars is that the cross dates from the *8th ct,,  most likely around the middle thereof, certainly not 6th or 7th, and also that the runic inscriptions were added after the cross with its figurative carvings had been erecteed - though probably not long after.