Fragments of the “Dream of the Rood” have been found on the Ruthwell Cross, an eighth-century stone cross hewn in Northumbria, now in Scotland. The larger poem was preserved in the 10th-century Vercelli manuscript, one of the oldest collections of poetry in Old English. Given its runic inscriptions on the Ruthwell Cross, it can be said “Dream of the Rood” was composed as early as the eighth century, which makes it one of the oldest poems in English.

“Dream of the Rood” is written in Old English, which is vastly different from its contemporary version. Old English is the language of the Anglo-Saxons of England. The Anglo-Saxons were groups of people who migrated from northern Europe to England during the fifth and sixth centuries. Many of them were from Germanic tribes, and Old English is considered a Germanic language close to Old German and Old Norse. The religion of the earliest Anglo-Saxons who came to England was possibly a type of Germanic “paganism,” polytheistic (i.e., with belief in many gods) in character.

Celtic-speaking people (from France, southern Germany, and central Europe) were already living in England since the first millennium BCE. Modern languages from England, such as Welsh and Scots, can trace their origins to the languages spoken by the Celtic people.