“Hiht wæs geniwad”: Rebirth in The Dream of the Rood Elaine Treharne There is a multitude of interpretations offered by scholars of the The Dream of the Rood. In essence, the poem represents a remarkable condensation of the core doctrine of Christian history. References range from the specifically penitential, to the evangelical, to Marian theology, to aspects of the Veneration of the Cross, and to those that focus chiefly on the eschatological concerns evinced by the poem. Each of these strands provides rich interpretative fodder for the scholar. 1 In addition, there is the link between this text and others explicating the Cross’s central role in the church as cosmic sign of redemption, salvation, judgement. Elements of the depiction of Christ some have seen as fundamental to negotiating the christological debate in the early medieval church concerning Christ’s dual nature, or there are arguably more simplistic readings of Christ in The Dream of the Rood as a combination of Germanic warrior and Logos. It is certainly the case that the more one negotiates The Dream of the Rood, the more interpretative possibilities emerge; thus, revisiting the poem always produces revision. Providing the crux of the text, as for salvation history, is the Passion of Christ, mediated here by the Cross, and interpreted through the framework of the visionary’s own narrative. There can be little doubt, I think, that The Dream of the Rood is intimately linked with the Lenten period and its great climax of Easter. While all ears are drawn to the portrayal of Christ’s crucifixion, and its magnificently crafted depiction, the meaning of the text, for this writer at least, is negotiated by the 1 See, for example, Earl R. Anderson, ‘Liturgical Influences in “The Dream of the Rood”’, Neophilologus 73 (1989), 293-304; W. F. Bolton, ‘The Book of Job in “The Dream of the Rood”’, Mediaevalia 6 (1980), 87-103; Monica Brzezinski, ‘The Harrowing of Hell, the Last Judgment, and “The Dream of the Rood”’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 89 (1988), 252-65; Mary Dockray-Miller, ‘The Feminized Cross of “The Dream of the Rood”’, Philological Quarterly 76 (1997), 1-18; Anthony R. Grasso, CSC, ‘Theology and Structure in “The Dream of the Rood”’, Religion and Literature 23 (1991), 23-38; Thomas D. Hill, ‘The Cross as Symbolic Body: An Anglo-Latin Liturgical Analogue to “The Dream of the Rood”’, Neophilologus 77 (1993), 297-301; David F. Johnson, ‘Old English Religious Poetry: “Christ and Satan” and “The Dream of the Rood”’, in Companion to Old English Poetry, ed. Henk Aertsen and Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr. (Vrije UP: Amsterdam, 1994), 159-87; Éamonn Ó Carragáin, ‘Crucifixion as Annunciation: The Relation of “The Dream of the Rood” to the Liturgy Reconsidered’, English Studies 63 (1982), 487-505; and Éamonn Ó Carragáin, ‘Vidi Aquam: The Liturgical Background to “The Dream of the Rood” 20a: “Swætan on þa swiðran healfe”’, Notes and Queries 30 (1983), 8-15; Jane Roberts, ‘Some Relationships between “The Dream of the Rood” and the Cross at Ruthwell’, Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature 15 (2000), 1-25.