Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. By Judith Jesch. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2001. Pp. xiv + 330; 56 illustrations. $90.

In 1912 Hjalmar Falk wrote an article (122 pages of large format) entitled "Altnordisches Seewesen" (Wörter und Sachen 4). It is a most useful, often-cited work. Jesch's goal, as she explains, was to rewrite Falk's article "for the twenty-first century, to complement the greatly increased (and continually increasing) evidence that archaeology has provided for nautical history since Falk wrote, and in particular the intensive ship-archaeological research of the last forty years or so" (p. 42). Although her book will be read mainly by specialists in Old Norse, she spared no pains to make it accessible to a broader public. For this purpose she skillfully inserted numerous explanations facilitating the lay reader's way through the text. Apart from the introduction called "Rocks and Rhymes" (a paraphrase of Peter Foote's title "Wrecks and Rhymes"), the book contains five chapters ("Viking Activities," "Viking Destinations," "Ships and Sailing," "The Crew, the Fleet and Battles at Sea," and "Group and Ethos in War and Trade") and an epilogue ("Kings and Ships").

Anatoly Liberman
University of Minnesota