A memorial cross for Frakki farther of Odd inside Old Kirk Braddan (Church of St. Brendan) at Braddan Bridge in Braddan.
This memorial is known as the Odd’s Cross (Manx Cross 136) and is one of the Manx Crosses displayed inside Old Kirk Braddan.
The funerary inscription reads:
‘Odd put up this cross in memory of Frakki but Thor…’Odd's Cross can be seen in 3D at the following link: (
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Odd’s Cross is the base of a tapering pilar cross which is thought to be similar in style to that of Thorleifs Cross. The piece was originally found built into the Church tower forming a lintel over a doorway. On one face there are two well carved figures of pelleted dragons head-to-head. The opposite face has a similar panel arrangement, bordered above and below by hands with step-pattern ornament. One edge has been ornamented by a plain step-pattern between raised flat borders and the other edge bears the inscription runes. What remains reads “Odd raised this cross to the memory of his father, Frakki But thor…” but here the rest becomes illegible.
Source: “The Braddan Crosses” a booklet available inside the church with unknown author.
Place above an internal door in the Bell Tower of Old Kirk Braddan), No. 136 once served as a lintel. In this position only one face was visible and fortunately not the runic inscribed one.
By 1857 the stone had been removed from Bell Tower following the discovery to the runic inscription as described in ‘The Illustrated London News’ (8 xii 1855: 685), which reported that the slab “was removed from its place [over the doorway] under the superintendence of an English gentleman who had been travelling about the island”
The English gentleman was the writer George Borrow, and it was Borrow who arranged for the slab to be set up in the churchyard next to 135. In 1907 it was moved along with the other Braddan runic crosses to the inside of the church.
No. 136 is a substantial slab of grey mudstone although the top of the original has been broken away. ‘What remains is the lower section of a standing cross, tapering from the base. One face has interlace dragons, the other a pair of elaborate interlace ornaments. A step pattern decorates one of the edges of the slab, the other has the runes, which run from the base upwards between incised framing lines. The top section of the surviving inscription has suffered severe damage in modern times.’
Source: The Runic Inscriptions of the Isle of Man by Michael P. Barnes (ISBN: 978-0-903521-97-0)
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Further comments‘This stone was found being used as a door lintel in Old Kirk Braddan before it was place in the churchyard in 1855. The upper part of the stone has been broken off, so that it now stands to a height of just 1m. Based on its close proximity to Thorleif’s Cross (Braddan 135), it is likely that the missing head was of the same form. The dragon-like design of the two intertwined beasts, the joints of their limbs accentuated with spirals, and their scaley bodies decorated with pelleted carving, is a typical example of the Mammem Style which was current in the later 10th century. A broach found in a hoard in Skail in Orkney has similar motifs and it has long been suggested that these Manx carvings influenced its edge.
The other face is decorated with a series of intricately carved knots. The runic inscriptions running along one edge translates as ‘Odd raised this cross in memory of Frakki’. The last part of the inscription is damaged but a 19th century description suggests that the nest part read ‘his father, but Tho(rjorn?) …’
Source: A Guide To The Archaeological Sites of the Isle of Man Up To AD 1550 by Andrew Johnson and Allison Fox (ISBN 978-0-9554043-5-1)
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Fantastic beasts…Hunting scenes containing animals of this realm, but many of the crosses carry images of fantastic and fabulous animals. Only the base survives of Odd’s cross at Braddan old church, for example, but one face of it is carved with crocodile-like serpents, ending with a spiral for a tail. Like deer, the Isle of Man has no serpents or snakes, so again the carver was illustrating something he may never have seen.
The stone is called Odd’s cross because the runic inscription reads ‘Odd raised this cross to the memory of his father Frakki, but Thor…’. The cross breaks off at this point and, as runes are read as the tree grows, i.e. from the bottom upwards the rest of the inscription is lost. The depiction of serpents could be alluding to Jomungandr which, in Norse mythology, is a huge sea serpent and the brother of the wolf Fenrir.
Interestingly Jomungandr’s main enemy is Thor, who is also mentioned on the cross. Jomungandr grew so large that it circled the whole world and could grasp its own tail in its mouth, so was sometimes also called the Midgard or World Serpent. Could the spirals of the carving be indicating the world? According to legend, when Jomungandr lets go of its tail, Ragnarok, which is the end of the world, begins. The disadvantage of thinking that the carvings represent Jomungandr is that there are two serpents and Jomungandr is unique.
Not that Norse carvers restrict themselves to only one iteration of mythical beings on their crosses. Although very much worn, experts agree that one of the crosses at Juby depicts, below the cross arm, the legend of Sigurd and Fafnir. Fafnir began life as a dwarf but killed his father Hreithmar for his large mound of gold. Fafnir then changed into a dragon in order to guard it: J.R.R. Tolkein based the dragon Smaug in his book The Hobbit on Fafnir. Advised by Odin, Sigurd kills Fafnir for his gold and then cooks his heart, as whoever eats the heart of a dragon is given knowledge of how to talk and understand birds. The Juby cross shows Sigurd stabbing the dragon Fafnir and then shows Sigurd again further down, roasting the dragon’s heart.’
Source: Cross Purposes: an introduction to medieval Manx Crosses by Sara Goodwins (ISBN:978-1-908060-30=3)
The native Scandinavian art, as exhibited on Swedish and Norwegian stones, is of a character wholly different.
The ornament is zoomorphic, a style repugnant to the artistic conceptions of the Celtic races.
Huge serpentine monsters, terrestrial or marine, engaged in fierce combat, with their writhing bodies Intertwined, are depicted on the Scandinavian stones*, just as the Kraken, the Dragon, the Snake, and the long Serpent, were carved as figure-heads on the prows of the Viking galleys.+
On some of the Manx crosses, such as the Thorlaf cross at Kirk Braddan (figured on plate, p. 97), we see an ornate form of this draconic decoration covering the shaft, while the head of the cross exhibits a survival of the Irish knotwork employed on the cross at Kirk Michael.
It is plain that the stones which display the writhing serpents, so characteristic of Scandinavian design, must be referred to a period when the milder Celtic art, with its exquisite geometrical patterns, had been infected by the fiercer ideas congenial to the descendants of Viking chiefs.
These two characteristic crosses, the Thorlaf stone at Kirk Braddan and the Nial Lumgun stone at Kirk Michael, may be taken to represent the two extreme types-Irish and Scandinavian-to be found on the Island, and must evidently be separated by a considerable period of time. of intermediate date is a series of stones which exhibit a gradual transition from the Celtic to the Scandinavian type of ornament. The Kirk Malew cross' and the great jualfr cross§ at Kirk Michael may be taken as instances. In these, especially the latter, the main and central ornament is Irish, while the subsidiary and superadded ornament is Scandinavian.
From a study of these monuments, it becomes plain that the Irish cross, with pure geometrical ornament, was the original type, out of which the Scandinavian cross, with zoomorphic ornament, was gradually developed.
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Unfortunately, No.136 is missing its top but there are good grounds to believe that it would have originally been very similar to No. 135 Thorleif’s Cross in its form, a tapering pillar with a small, pierced ring at cross head. Three sides of the shaft show highly accomplished decoration of the Mammen style, their tails, limbs and top-knots elaborately interlaced. The other edge carries the cut runic inscription.
It is the of the Manx Mammen style and thus dates from between c.950-1000/25.
The sinuous animal caught up in interlace on the narrow face is reminiscent of the rather more strictly separated animals of the Jellinge style. The slightly more robust animals on the boarder face are more typical of the Mammen style.
The pelleting which fills the body is an important element of the Mammen style.
This cross is remarkable for its skilled craftsmanship and must have been expensive to produced which would indicate that Odd was of a high status to be able to commission the memorial.
Source: “Manx Crosses” by David M. Wilson (ISBN:978-1-78491-756-2)
Dating Manx Crosses
“The chronological sequence of the Manx cross-slabs of the period of Scandinavian settlement is mainly derived from the sequence of ornamental styles in use in Scandinavia in the period when the crosses were carved in the Island. The dating of the styles is based largely on decorated wooden objects in the homelands, the chronology of which provides a reasonably accurate sequence of dates constructed on the basis of dendrochronology, which is usually accurate to within a year or two. Such dates are supplemented by metal objects decorated in the defined styles found in coin-hoards throughout the Viking world.”
“The names of the styles are taken from Scandinavian sites in which classic examples have been found. The styles which have been recognised in the Isle of Man, with their generally accepted dates in their Scandinavian homelands, are shown below:
Borre c.850-950
Jellinge c.900-975
Mammen c.950-1000/25
Ringerike c.1000-1075
The final style of the Viking Age, the Urnes style (c/1050-1125), does not occur on any of the Manx crosses.”
Source: “Manx Crosses” by David M. Wilson (ISBN:978-1-78491-756-2)