✝️ Halton Cross

The Halton Cross, also known as Sigurd's Cross, is a composite high cross in the churchyard of St Wilfrid's Church, Halton-on-Lune, Lancashire. A 19th-century reconstruction, it comprises the remaining fragment of the original 10th- or 11th-century cross together with several 8th- or 9th-century fragments found locally. All feature carvings, some abstract and some representational. The carvings on the remains of the original cross, to be seen at the base of the shaft, show scenes from the legend of Sigurd, a part of the Germanic Nibelung tradition, together with Christian symbols. It has been called "an important survival from the twilight years when Christianity and paganism battled in the minds of men", and the archaeologist B. J. N. Edwards considered it "probably the clearest representation of part of the Sigurd story outside Scandinavia".