Ringerike style gravestone

This rectangular slab of limestone (probably Combe Down Oolite from near Bath) is carved in low relief with a stylised lion fighting a serpent, in the style (known as 'Ringerike') that was popular in Scandinavia and England in the 1000s. There are traces of paint. The left-hand edge has a two-line inscription in the runic alphabet used in Scandinavia at this time: ':[k]ina: let: lekia: st | in: þensi: auk: tuki:'. The language is Old Norse, and it means 'Ginna and Toki had this stone laid'. The stone was found just outside St Paul's Cathedral and probably marked the grave of a follower of the Danish king Cnut, who ruled England from 1016 to 1035. It is possible that Ginna was the widow and Toki the son of the dead man, whose name must have appeared elsewhere on the tomb.