Description of stone
Event ID 1009939
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Early Medieval Carved Stones Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1009939
Mugdrum, Fife, cross-shaft in base
Measurements: shaft H 3.36m, W 0.74m, D 0.41m: base H 0.46m, L 1.68m, W 1.22m
Stone type: red sandstone
Place of discovery: NO 2263 1819
Present location: in situ near Mugdrum House.
Evidence for discovery: first illustrated in 1840.
Present condition: extremely weathered shaft, head of cross missing.
Description
The cross stands on a slight rise near the S bank of the River Tay and has clearly been exposed to the prevailing westerly winds, for the west and south faces are so badly eroded that little survives of their carving. It is oriented east-west, and the carving on the east and north faces (A and B) is best seen in Tom Gray’s photographs of 1995 (used in Proudfoot 1997). The shaft stands in an apparently plain rectangular solid base, and a band of softer sandstone has eroded even more to give the shaft a waisted appearance. Each face of the shaft appears to have been bordered by a roll moulding with another thinner roll moulding within it.
On face A the ornament is in four panels and much detail has been lost but the broad themes are clear: the top panel contains a trotting horse and rider, facing left, and a strip of interlace separates them from another horse and rider in the panel below, the rider armed with a spear and the horse again trotting to the left. Below another strip of interlace, the third panel contains two horsemen riding to the left, and the fourth panel shows the end of a hunt with fallen deer on the left being attacked by hounds on the right. Narrow face B, the north face, is also divided into four panels by a fine double-roll moulding. The top two panels are square and the first contains traces of regular knotwork, while the second has a zoomorphic motif. The third panel is a long rectangle and contains a well executed inhabited vine scroll consisting of three scrolls. Each scroll is inhabited by a creature described by Allen as a winged dragon, perhaps a griffin, each of whose legs extend well outside their scroll. Between the scrolls are bunches of berries or leaves. At the base of the shaft there is a rectangular panel of diagonal key pattern.
Date: tenth century.
References: Butler 1897, 233-6; ECMS pt 3, 366, 367; Proudfoot 1997, 54-6.
Compiled by A Ritchie 2016
