The Scandinavian Runic Inscriptions of Britain. By Michael P. Barnes and R. I. Page. Runrön: Runologiska bidrag utgivna av Institutionen för nordiska språk vid Uppsala universitet, 19. Uppsala: Institutionen för nordiska språk, Uppsala universitet, 2006. Pp. 453, 98 plates. 62 figures.

Like everything undertaken by these two authors, this volume is characterized by a clarity of presentation not always encountered in scientific works. before the individual inscriptions are treated, background matters are given a thorough discussion in introductory chapters (pp. 19–113). these include: "Establishing the corpus," "twig runes and the Orkney corpus," "Examining the inscriptions," "Rune forms and orthography," "transliteration, Language, Literacy," "questions but no answers," and "Modus operandi."

Elmer H. Antonsen
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign