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for a singular ‘Anglo-Saxon’ gaze on landscape for over six centuries, from
a presumed Anglo-Saxon mass-migration to the Anglo-Scandinavian
period. Her vision of early medieval sacred geography – as with Lees and
Overing – remains focused on the texts of a small religious elite, and
fails to utilize the now rich archaeological evidence to consider how
landscapes may have been perceived by the majority who worked and
inhabited them. There is also little attention to the diversity and evolving
nature of the early medieval landscape that interdisciplinary research is
increasingly revealing.

All three of these papers tend to regard landscape as a manifestation

of mentality and the imagination, with only passing reference to the
practices of generations of early medieval people operating within
and shaping these landscapes, and investing them with meaning and
memory. The papers are certainly successful in identifying the vast
potential for integrating archaeological data into the historical, literary
and art-historical study of early medieval landscapes, and serve as a remedy
for landscape studies that prioritize socio-economics over sacred geography.
However, it remains clear that both archaeological theories and methods
are being bypassed here. Whilst the volume as a whole illustrates the
potential for interdisciplinary perspectives on landscapes and religion
in the Middle Ages, it also demonstrates that a fully interdisciplinary
perspective has yet to be achieved in relation to this fascinating topic.

University of Exeter

HOWARD WILLIAMS

A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture.
Edited by Rory McTurk. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 2005. xiii

+ 567

pp. ISBN 0 631 23502 7.

A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture contains
twenty-nine chapters on various aspects relating to literature and society
in medieval Iceland. The literary corpus is divided into traditional
categories, such as ‘Sagas of Icelanders’, ‘Sagas of Icelandic Pre-History’
( fornaldarsögur) and ‘Eddic Poetry’. In most cases, however, the con-
tributors seek to place the individual genres within a wider literary
context, as well as emphasizing their unstable boundaries. The second
group of contributions provides historical, literary or stylistic frameworks
around the genre-specific chapters. Thus, for instance, we have chapters
on ‘Manuscripts and Palaeography’, ‘Language’, ‘Social Institutions’
and ‘Archaeology of Economy and Society’. The third group deals with
broad topics that encompass the Old Norse literary corpus and the
society from which it emerged. I can mention here Judy Quinn’s chapter

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‘Women in Old Norse Poetry and Sagas’ and Judith Jesch’s introduction
to geography and travel in the period. The twenty-nine chapters are
arranged alphabetically rather than thematically because, in the words of
the editor, ‘it does not commit the reader in advance to any particular
grouping among the topics treated’ (p. 4). At first sight this may seem
an organizational eccentricity, and this method certainly appears to have
disturbed the equilibrium of some reviewers. But considering that each
chapter deals with a topic that relates to several other topics, this arrange-
ment does possess its own logic. In any case, at the end of each chapter
cross-references are provided to other relevant contributions. The chapters
are invariably of high quality and they will provide fine introductions
for both beginners in the field of Old Norse studies and those wishing
to gauge the state of research in its various sub-departments. Naturally,
each author approaches his or her task in a different fashion, and in this
respect the editor has given the contributors considerable freedom. Some
contributions rely heavily on their own previous research. Accordingly
the tone can become almost polemical in nature. For example, Gísli
Sigur2sson’s chapter ‘Orality and Literacy in the Sagas of Icelanders’,
to a large extent rehearses arguments he presents in his book on the same
subject. Other contributors manage to strike a perfect balance between
repeating their own findings and providing a general introduction to
the subject. A notable example is Terry Gunnell who presents an excellent
chapter on Eddic poetry. Ideally the third ingredient is added to the
aforementioned mix, namely, a review of previous scholarship in the
field; the admirably informative and succinct ‘Short Prose Narrative’
(páttr) by Elizabeth Ashman Rowe and Joseph Harris springs to mind.

I have two minor critical observations about the volume as a whole.

The bibliographies that follow each chapter could perhaps have been
presented in a more user-friendly manner for those seeking English
translations of the sagas. Having perused the excellent chapters on ‘Royal
Biography’, ‘Late Prose Fiction’ (lygisögur) and ‘Romance’ (riddarasögur),
this reader will need to look elsewhere for details of the standard and/or
the most scholarly English translation of these sagas. While information
of this kind is included in other chapters under the heading ‘Editions
and Translations’, it should have been included in all of them. My other
observation relates to the second category of chapters highlighted
earlier, namely, those that provide a context for the literary corpus. It is,
of course, easy and perhaps unfair to point out topics that could have
been included in a publication of this nature. I feel strongly, however,
that the volume would have benefited from the inclusion of an intro-
duction to Icelandic history in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
This chapter would have complemented Orri Vésteinsson’s, Helgi
P

orláksson’s and Gunnar Karlsson’s fine introductions to the history

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of the Icelandic Commonwealth. One observable trend in Old Norse-
Icelandic studies in recent years has been a growing interest in genres
which previously had been mostly ignored, such as Romances (that is,
translated Riddarasögur) or the aforementioned lygisögur. These sagas,
by common consent, were mainly composed (or at least written down)
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (and some even much later).
Additionally, the overwhelming number of Icelandic manuscripts date
from the post-Commonwealth period. This considered, a ‘framework’
chapter dealing with Icelandic society in the post-Commonweath and
pre-Reformation period would have been a welcome addition to the
chapters on history and archaeology. Otherwise, Rory McTurk is to be
commended for his excellent work, for successfully identifying the
relevant topics to be discussed and the most suitable scholars to write
on them. The Companion will provide a fine complement to that old
warhorse Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide from 1985 (edited
by C. Clover and J. Lindow), which, by a fortuitous coincidence, has
been recently reprinted with some emendations.

University College London

HAKI ANTONSSON

Caedmon’s Hymn: A Multi-media Study, Edition and Archive. By
Daniel Paul O’Donnell. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer in association with
SEENET and The Medieval Academy. 2005. xxiii

+ 261 pp., with

accompanying CD ROM. £50.00. ISBN 1 84384 044 8.

To students of later English literature unfamiliar with the history and
culture of the Anglo-Saxon period it may seem curious that a poem
nine lines in length merits a new 261-page analysis after years of close
scholarly attention, but the text edited here by Daniel O’Donnell holds
a special place in English literature. The poem known as Caedmon’s
Hymn is associated with a miraculous event recorded in the Venerable
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (IV.24), whereby an apparently illiterate
cowherd, who previously had regularly left festive occasions when his
turn to entertain approached because he could not recite or sing in the
traditional manner, through Divine intervention received the ability to
compose the most beautiful biblical poetry. Bede does not say, however,
that Caedmon was the first person ever to adapt the traditional
Germanic idiom to the service of the Christian God; in the context of
recording the successful establishment of the church in England, and
in Northumbria in particular, he perhaps relates this story as another
example of God’s ongoing intervention in human affairs, and also to
celebrate the success of the abbess Hild at her monastery in Whitby.