Aldred’s interlinear gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.IV) is one of the most substantial representatives of the Old English variety known as late Old Northumbrian. Although it has received a great deal of attention in the past two centuries, there are still numerous issues which remain unresolved. The papers in this collection approach the gloss from a variety of perspectives – language, cultural milieu, palaeography, glossography – in order to shed light on many of these issues, such as the authorship of the gloss, the morphosyntax and vocabulary of the dialect(s) it represents, its sources and relationship to the Rushworth Gospels, and Aldred’s cultural and religious affiliations. Because of its breadth of coverage, the collection will be of interest and great value to scholars in the fields of Anglo-Saxon studies and English historical linguistics.

"First published 2003 by The British Library, London"--T.p. verso.

"Greenfield and Robinson state in their preface that they have sought to include every book, monograph, article, note, and review published on Old English literature since the invention of printing. They have come as close to doing so as two descendants of Adam possibly can, undeterred by the trouble at Babel. (By my count, thirty different languages are represented in the bibliography, sixteen of them frequently.) Rarely has any bibliography in any other discipline equalled the thoroughness and accuracy of this one. It is a contribution for which Greenfield and Robinson will long receive from their colleagues that measure of gratitude reserved for Old English scholarship's most bounteous treasure-givers."--Carl T. Berkhout"What astonishes is how well [Greenfield and Robinson] have succeeded in what they set out to do, how uniformly excellent their volume is in all its profusion of information and detail. . . . The Bibliography will bring scholars that peculiar joy in complex intellectual work done well that only they know; it will be immensely useful, virtually indispensable--if not a vade mecum because of its size . . . then at least an enchiridion with which they will fight their battles on behalf of Beowulf and Brunanburb and the Blickling Homilies."--The Old English Newsletter"[A] volume long needed, [the Bibliography] will now become an indispensable reference work for every student of Old English literature from the beginner to the acknowledged authority."--British Book News

An evolution of attitudes towards pre-Christian custom in , North-West Europe, as shown in early .medieval word-fields and texts in Old English and Old Icelandic literature, is represented in six variously focussed studies. The first three chapters, Pagan Words, form a network of research on pre-Christian concepts of mind and soul as they survived, still active, in Christianized heroic poetry. This was part of. the heathen matrix through which the first expressions of Christianity in Old English and Icelandic literature were possible. The second half of this book, Christian Meanings, shows .how the same Christian literature produced reinterpretations of paganism. The literary range stretches from the earliest epic formulae to the polished genealogical novels of thirteenth-century Iceland- An ancient tradition of augury is invoked by the poet of The Seafarer to illustrate a believer's passage to heaven. In Havamal, an artificially pagan creed of ritual teaching and responses is compiled in Iceland as an antiquarian entertainment, perhaps on a Christian model. The last chapter shows a variety of Christian interpretations of, paganism in four sagas of Icelanders from the early to late thirteenth century. Overall where paganism was concerned, the tendency was first to cast off a way of life, then later, when that life was lost forever, to reinvent it for the imagination.