Bears of Dacre

St Andrew’s Church at Dacre in Cumberland is intriguing for a number of reasons. For example, the presence of four carved bears in the its churchyard, dating to the medieval period. Their purpose is not clear, but it is suggested that each once stood at its four corners.

Dacre might have been the setting for the famous gathering of kings in AD 927 in which Aethelstan of England defined our national borders. Might the bears in their various corners have commemorated this event? Or were they placed in memory of the monastery of Dacre which the Venerable Bede mentions, and was likely destroyed by Vikings? The bears may have been a warning to those pagan looters not to cross again the holy thresholds of Dacre.

Bears do not appear often in the Bible, but two were usefully employed to maul a group of youths who hector Elisha in 2 Kings 2:23-24. For mocking the man of God, the loutish lads fared the worse. I, for one, have no plans to mess with a bear. Yet how many of our countrymen take lightly the demands and sensibilities of the Maker of bears, whose power, strength and wrath are far, far greater than those creatures of which we are rightly afraid?