Short answers, pulled from the story.
By 1983, the Isle of Man had 26 surviving Viking Age runestones. That number surpassed the 33 runestones found across all of Norway, a remarkable concentration for an island of only 572 square kilometres.
Thorwald's Cross is a Viking Age stone cross found in the church at Andreas on the Isle of Man. It shows a bearded figure, interpreted as the Norse god Odin, being consumed by the wolf Fenrir, alongside a depiction of Christ triumphing over Satan. Scholars describe it as syncretic art, combining pagan and Christian imagery on a single monument.
The high number of Manx runestones is attributed to two forces: the merging of the Norse runestone tradition with the local Celtic tradition of raising high crosses, and the decision by the church to encourage runic inscriptions for Christian commemorative purposes rather than condemning them as pagan.
Most Manx runestones use short-twig runes, a variant of the runic alphabet. Some use long-branch runes, and two slabs at Maughold bear Anglo-Saxon runes. At least one stone at Kirk Michael carries ogham inscriptions on both sides alongside its runic text.
Thorbjorn was a named runemaster who carved at least three runestones on the Isle of Man in the 980s. He is identified on Br Olsen;191B and Br Olsen;193A in Braddan parish, and on Br Olsen;217B in Kirk Michael, showing he worked across multiple communities.
Sixteen of the surviving Manx runestones share the formula "N put up this cross in memory of M," recording a named raiser commemorating a named individual. The remaining ten stones vary from this pattern, including at least one raised for the benefit of the person who commissioned it.