There always has been great deal of discussion about the style of wrestling depicted on the misericord from St. Cuthbert's Church in the village of Halsall, near Ormskirk in West Lancashire. The XIV century wood carving shows two men wrestling in an equal cross-wise "hip and thigh" holds (see pic below).
My interpretation of this famous piece of Medieval art is based on English history and on the comparative visual analyses. The name of the market-town Ormskirk is of Old Norse origin, and the earliest settlement in that area was established by the Norsemen, or Vikings. If we follow this logic then likely the local wrestling style would also have been of North Germanic origin. Then the legit question is: "Which Viking wrestling style (and they had quite a few of them) does this image resemble?" Fair enough to say that in fact the Halsall wood sculpture does have similarities with the Icelandic Vikings wrestling style called GLIMA which was and still is (according to various sources) the same as it always was (i.e. equal cross-wise hip and thigh hold), meaning that the essential rules thereof have never changed over the time. So, there we go, Glima it is, my friends. The images from the 1908 book called "Icelandic Wrestling" by a famous local champion wrestler Jóhannes Jósefsson with the basic info on this style of wrestling to follow below. Enjoy my friends, Russian Concussion.
Good question! I haven't been up there to measure it - maybe a job for a sunny autumn day?