For that reason, I shall refer throughout to the Ruthwell Monument in preference to the Ruthwell Cross." In his 1998 essay, “Rethinking the Ruthwell Monument: Fragments and Critique; Tradition and History; Tongues and Sockets,” scholar Fred Orton discusses a note Reginald Bainbrigg wrote to William Camden in 1600 for possible publication in any new edition of his 1586 "Britannia": “Bainbrigg saw a ‘column’ which he referred to as a ‘cross,’” Orton said of the note. Orton is also convinced the piece is made of two different types of stone: “... it seems to make more sense to see the Ruthwell monument as originally a column ... amended with the addition of a Crucifixion scene, and then ... further amended with the addition of a cross made of a different kind of stone." At each side of the vine-tracery runic inscriptions are carved. The runes were first described around 1600, and Reginald Bainbrigg of Appleby recorded the inscription for the "Britannia" of William Camden. Around 1832, the runes were recognized as different from the Scandinavian futhark (categorized as Anglo-Saxon runes) by Thorleif Repp, by reference to the Exeter Book. His rendition referred to a place called the vale of Ashlafr, compensation for injury, a font and a monastery of Therfuse. John Mitchell Kemble in 1840 advanced a reading referring to Mary Magdalene. The better known "Dream of the Rood" interpretation is due to a revised reading of Kemble's in an 1842 article. The inscription along the top and left side is read as:  Kemble's revised reading is based on the poem of the Vercelli Book, to the extent that missing words in each are supplied from the other. Kemble himself notes how the inscription may be "corrected" with the help of the Vercelli Book. The inscription on the left side is read: The manuscript text reads:  The interpretation is disputed and may be a conjecture inserted by Kemble himself: O'Neill (2005) notes Kemble's "almost pathological dislike of Scandinavian interference in what he sees as the English domain." Many believe that the runes, as opposed to the Latin inscriptions, were added later, possibly as late as the 10th century. Conner agrees with Paul Meyvaert's conclusion that the runic poem dates from after the period in which the monument was created.