In July last year I reviewed another little book of Rodrigues. Already then I planned to get me some more of these books, so a while ago I found five of them from the same bookshop. The text looks like it is made with an electrical typewriter and the only ‘luxery’ is plastic around the simple, soft cover. Rodrigues made a whole range of these Anglo-Saxon textbooks. The booklets have a large variety in price, so look around well when you want to get them. They read rapidly. The current title has a lengthy and slightly too scholarly introduction, too detailed to be really interesting for a layman. The texts themselves are again printed in the original language of the left and in translation on the right. What we have here are runic verse inscriptions (the most famous that from the “Franks casket” and the Ruthwell cross), poems that contain runes, riddles, “the husband’s message”, “the first dialogue of Solomon and Saturn” and the Anglo-Saxon rune poem. For convenience sake Rodrigues also included the Norse and Icelandic rune poems. At the end there are quite a few illustrations of a photocopy quality.
Again a nice little book and an easy way to get some Anglo-Saxon material in your collection. When the other booklets read as quickly as this one, you can expect some more similar reviews soon.
1992 Llanerch, isbn 0947992944