commonplace in England since the time of the earlier Saxon conversion to Christianity in the 8th century. Consequentially it had come to be believed that the end of the first millennium A.D. would bring with it the apocalypse. The carvings upon the Sproxton Cross would have had profound contemporary significance in relating the message that people should accept Christ quickly, before the impending Doom. The Anglo-Scandinavians of Sproxton would have seen this as a fixing of the date for Ragnarök, and journeying priests would have cleverly convinced them that the hope of Life Eternal would be better vested in Christ, rather than Odin, for while Odin cannot cannot prevent the inevitable Doom, Christ triumphs at the Last Judgement. To the pagan mind this would of course have made Christ a more powerful God-figure than Odin. It is tempting to speculate as to what the lost images upon the east facing side of the cross might have been. Given that the imagery upon the west facing side is zoomorphic, showing beasts, might the imagery upon the eastern side have been anthropomorphic instead? Perhaps there were episodes from the Volüspa recounting the life of Baldr, ‘the beautiful god’. The famous wheel-headed cross in Gosforth churchyard, in Cumberland, shows scenes from the legend of Baldr, dualistically identifying him with Christ. After the murder of Baldr by his blind brother Höd, who has been tricked by Loki into shooting a dart of poisonous mistletoe into Baldr, Hermód, one of Odin’s sons, is told by the rulers of the underworld that Baldr will only be released from Nifelheim, the purgatorial underworld, if everything in the world weeps for him. But a giantess called Thökk (who is perhaps the evil Loki in disguise) refuses to weep, thereby imprisoning Baldr, who can only be released from Nifelheim at the time of Ragnarök, when the old gods will perish and the world will be reborn. At Gosforth the epic of Baldr is considered as paralleling the Resurrection of Christ and the coming of His Kingdom. Possibly at Sproxton there may have been a representation of a scene from the tale of Baldr, perhaps a carving of Loki, bound up, and cast into the darkness of Nifelheim for his part in the slaying of Baldr, which would, of course, have served as a symbol for Satan chained and cast into the abyss for a thousand years at the time of Revelation. And maybe there was a representation of Heimdall ‘the World-brightener’, blowing upon the Gjallarhorn, to summon the old gods to their doom, Heimdall, of course, being equated with the Angel Gabriel. Previous commentators have not broached the subject of the aforementioned projecting band upon the shaft, which is 7" wide, and which is positioned 3' 1" from the base. Perhaps it once carried a frieze of sculpted scenes carved in the very lowest relief, which have weathered away. However, it should be borne in mind that ancient crosses such as Sproxton’s would have originally been intended to be painted in bright colours, and this has been proven by forensic research, where such research has been undertaken. The most common colour scheme involved the use of black, white and red pigments, red being used for the