Dreamer and Rood

The Dream of the Rood" is an Old English poem found, as your text points out, in a late-tenth century manuscript.

There are indications that the original poem is much older.

This poem derives from the Germanic tradition of heroic poetry.

The poem opens with a Dreamer, a man who describes himself as sorrowful, sinful, and alone. Being alone was extremely significant to these people because it was very difficult to survive if one were not part of a group.

He is given a wondrous vision of the Cross, a vision that gives him hope for a future in heaven where he will be back in the type of company of which he is no longer a part.

The main part of the poem is a speech by the Cross itself. Personification of inanimate objects was a common technique in Old English poetry.

Note the duality of the Cross; it is at times seen richly bedecked with gold and jewels, an object of worship and a beacon of hope, and at other times covered with the blood of the crucified Christ, an object of torture that simultaneously symbolizes Christ's sacrifice for mankind.

Throughout the Cross's speech, it presents itself as one of Christ's comitatus (a band of men who swear fealty to a leader and who stay with him in all endeavors) and also as a horse which Christ mounts.

Christ is presented as the Germanic warrior hero, eagerly embracing his fate for the sake of his people.

In typical Old English understatement, when Christ is taken down from the Cross, he is presented as merely sleeping, although he is, of course, dead. Another example of understatement is the reference to Christ's being left in "small company," i.e., alone, a reference the Dreamer uses for himself toward the end of the poem.

The poem was probably used to help spread Christianity to the Germanic people for whom a lord, one whom they might follow, had to be a traditional Germanic hero, and Christ admirably fits this picture in the poem.