Editing Eric Bloodaxe (section)

===Rey Cross===

[[File:The stump of the ancient Rey Cross - geograph.org.uk - 846388.jpg|thumb|left|Rey Cross]]
[[File:Eirik Blodøks with Gunhild, Egil Skallagrimsson standing.jpg|thumb|left|Eric Bloodaxe, seated, and [[Gunnhild, Mother of Kings|Gunnhild]] are confronted by [[Egill Skallagrimsson]].]]

On the north side of the A66 in Stainmore today stands the so-called [[Rey Cross|Rey cross]], also known as Rere Cross, though what survives is little more than a stump consisting of the socket and a fragment of the shaft. Before it was temporarily housed at the [[Bowes Museum]] in 1990 and moved to its present location, it stood on a mound of rock a little further west on the south side of the road – [[British national grid reference system|coordinates]]: {{gbmaprim|NY89991230|NY 89991230}}.<ref>"Rey Cross". In ''Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture. Volume VI: Yorkshire North Riding (Except Ryedale)'', ed. James Lang. pp. 283–84. The following is also based on the description there.</ref> The two sides of the shaft once seem to have borne carvings, if that much can be concluded from [[John Speed]]'s supposed description in 1611. Based on stylistic observations made by W. G. Collingwood when certain features were apparently still visible, it has been described as an Anglo-Scandinavian cross, possibly of the 10th century. No burials have been found. All evidence seems to point to its use as a boundary marker (between Cumbria and Northumbria), much like the [[Legg's cross]] (County Durham) on [[Dere Street]]. The name has been explained as deriving from [[Old Norse]] ''hreyrr'', "cairn", or "boundary cairn". Towards the end of the 19th century, however, [[W. S. Calverley]] argued that whatever its function in later ages, crosses in those times were usually tombstones, whereas boundary crosses postdate the Conquest. In the absence of a churchyard, he tentatively links the erection of the Rey cross to the putative battle on Stainmore. Although he ultimately rejects the idea of a memorial stone for Eric as "mere romance", W. G. Collingwood was less prepared to dismiss it out of hand: "a romancer might be justified in fancying that the Rey cross was carved and set up by Northumbrian admirers of the once mighty and long famous last King of York."<ref>[[William Slater Calverley]], "Stainmoor"; W. G. Collingwood, "King Eirík of York", p. 327; "The Battle of Stainmoor", pp. 240–41, cited passage on p. 241.</ref> No further evidence has been adduced to support the suggestion.