The angels are cherubim, with four wings, and spirals where the wings join on to the body, representations of which are to be seen on the stones at Eassie, Glamis, and elsewhere in Scotland. They do not occur on any of the sculptured crosses in Ireland; but there are instances of angels or the symbols of the four evangelists treated in the same fashion in the St. Gall Gospels, Codex No. 51,[467] and on the Book Shrine of St. Molaise’s Gospels,[468] in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, and also on a bronze plaque[469] of the Crucifixion, in the same collection. I have recently discovered a very curious instance of an angel of this kind, with three wings on a cross-slab, with interlaced-work, in St. David’s Cathedral, given in Westwood’s _Lapidarium Walliæ_ (pl. 63, fig. 4), but the wings and spirals only shown, and the head of the angel omitted. [466] L. H. S. Dietrichsen, _De Norske Stavkirker_, p. 362. [467] C. Purton Cooper’s “Appendix A to Report on Rymer’s Fœdera,” pl. 5. [468] _Archæologia_, vol. xliii., p. 131. [469] Westwood’s _Miniatures_, pl. 51. The pair of ecclesiastics, sometimes standing, sometimes enthroned, sometimes kneeling, with a bird holding a circular disc in its mouth between them, is a subject common to the early sculptured stones of both Scotland[470] and Ireland,[471] but the exact meaning of it has yet to be ascertained if we are not to take the instance on the Ruthwell cross as an authoritative explanation of the whole. [470] As at Nigg and St. Vigeans. Dr. J. Anderson regards the Nigg example as being intended for St. Paul and St. Anthony. [471] As at Kells, Moone Abbey, Clonca. As I have already pointed out in my Rhind Lectures on _Christian Symbolism_, there is a nearer affinity between the subjects chosen to decorate the bases of the Irish crosses and the representations of hunting scenes, horsemen, chariots, etc., on the upright cross-slabs of the north-east of Scotland, than the more strictly Scriptural scenes on the shafts of the Irish crosses. The best examples illustrating this are to be seen on the bases of the crosses at Kells (Figs. 5 and 6), Monasterboice, Clonmacnois, Castle Dermot (Fig. 7), and Kilklispeen. The chariot on the Meigle slab, now lost, may be compared with the chariots to be seen on the shaft of the cross at Killamery, and on the bases of the crosses at Monasterboice, Kilklispeen, and in Kells churchyard; on the base of the cross in the street at Kells we have the eagle and fish, as on the “Drosten” stone at St. Vigeans,[472] and as in the Book of Armagh; and on the base of this same cross, and on the cross of Muredach at Monasterboice, centaurs occur, in some respects like those on the slabs at Aberlemno, Meigle, and Glamis. [472] Another remarkable instance of the eagle and fish has recently been found on a stone with an Ogam inscription, at Latheron, near Keiss, Caithness.