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Reviews 149 reconsiders more than two hundred years of interpretation of the Baldr story. Bernard Martin offers a reappraisal of George Dumezil's interpretation of Snorri's story of Hrungnir as an Indo-European myth. Kellinde Wrightson reviews the recent resurgence of interest in Old Icelandic Marian poetry before turning to analysis of a miracle described in Mariu Saga and the late medieval poem Vitnisvisur af Mariu. It is perhaps unfair to betray the jovial spirit of this celebratory collection with more saturnine expressions of end-of-century doom and gloom. Nevertheless, some mention should be made of the sombre observations with which Margaret Clunies-Ross (p. 13) and John Stanley Martin (p. 107) conclude their contributions. While drawing attention to the long-standing enthusiasm for Old Norse studies in Australia and N e w Zealand, and to the high calibre of Antipodean research in thefield,both authors point out that this well-established and vital tradition is presently in danger of coming to an abrupt end because of cuts in government funding. It would be a great loss to the discipline in general if, after such a propitious first half century, Old Norse studies in Australia and N e w Zealand should be undermined by a misguided notion that the subject is too esoteric to be guaranteed a future in the university curriculum there. It can only be hoped thatfifty-yearsfrom now Old Norse Studies in the New World will still be read as the first published birthday celebration of a venerable centre of Norse research, and not as its obituary. Ian McDougall Dictionary of Old English Project University of Toronto Beadle, Richard and A. J. Piper, eds., New Science out of Old Books: Studies in Manuscripts and* Early Printed Books in Honour of A. I. Doyle, Aldershot, Scolar Press, 1995; cloth; pp. xi, 455; 69 plates; R.R.P.£65.00. Festschriften are a curious genre. Held together only by the interests of the person being honoured, they usually bear more resemblance to an issue of a journal than to a book, their contents typified by eclecticism rather than coherence. While individual papers may often be cited subsequently, the festschrift itself rarely exhibits anything more than a highly miscellaneous contribution to a broad subject area. This volume is no exception. It honours Ian Doyle, formerly Keeper of Rare Books and Reader in Bibliography at 150 Reviews Durham University, and well-known for his generously shared expertise in late medieval and early m o d e m English texts. The contributions show just how a broad a field this is. Several papers deal with aspects of the making of books and manuscripts: Richard and Mary Rouse edit and comment on an entertaining short twelfth-century sermon from Durham, which deals with the symbolism of the linen clothing of the scribe, while Kathleen Scott provides an interesting analysis of thirteen marginal signs or marks used by scribes and limners in late-medieval manuscripts. George Keiser looks at the ways in which the chapter divisions of a vernacular text like Lydgate's LyfofOur Lady were editorially modified in response to readers' needs for more detailed access to the text. Lotte Heilinga presents some convincing evidence that Wynkyn de Worde may have been Dutch rather than Alsatian, based on his use of a Dutch typeface, initials and woodcuts. Another loose theme is the work of specific scribes. Peter Lucas analyses the role of the author as copyist, based on the activity of John Capgrave. He argues that there were various kinds of authorial copies, usually much more carefully written than scribal copies, but varying in their purpose and the relative authoritativeness of their text. Richard Beadle examines the writing of the Macro Manuscript, particularly the role of the monk Thomas Hyngham of Bury St. Edmunds, while Michael Sargent reconsiders the attempts of the Carthusian Order to impose a degree of uniformity in their production of books and manuscripts. Individual authors are also studied: Anne Hudson discusses the main manuscript of Wyclif s Latin writings, while Malcolm Parkes argues against the existence of a scriptorium copying Gower's texts under his direction. Yet another theme is book-collecting, with papers on Roger Marchall...

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