Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/363

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BAG ENDERBY the most remarkable of all, is a running hart turning back its head to lick off with its long tongue some leaves from the tree of life growing from its back. This symbolism is purely Scandinavian; and that it could be used on a Christian font shows how thoroughly the two peoples and their two religions were commingling.[1] The large number of villages about here ending in "by"—Danish for hamlet—is sufficient evidence of the number of settlers from over the North Sea who had taken up their abode in this part of the county.

Somersby Church.

The green-sand, which underlies the chalk, and of which almost all the churches are built, crops out by the roadside in fine masses both here and at Somersby and Salmonby, as it does too at Raithby, Halton, Keal, all in the immediate neighbourhood of the chalk wolds. Inside the church, slabs on the floor of the chancel retain their brass inscriptions to Thomas and Agnes Enderby (1390), and Albinus de Enderby, builder of the tower (1407); and on the wall is a monument to John and Andrew Gedney (1533 and 1591). The latter

  1. The most notable instance of this is on the Gosforth Cross in Cumberland, where the same figure represents both Odin and Christ. Here too was a permanent Norse settlement.