Review from previous edition the secions on the patterns of social order and inheritance will make this book an indispensable example of runology applied to social history, a line of study with a future. It is worth buying for the careful tabulation of inscriptions and motifs alone... Sawyer ... brings half a lifetime's work, and many modifications of her original thesis, to an impressive consummation. All the available material is listed, classified and identified in a series of appendices and notes which will bring blessings on her head from anglophone researchers waiting for the completion of the general rune-text database.

English Historical Review

This is a stimulating book, challenging accepted interpretations and suggesting new sources for Viking Age social history.

R.I.Page, Times Higher Education Supplement

thorough statistical coverage, backed up by a seventy page "Catalogue" ... her work puts the English-speaking reader for the frst time in possession of the basic information painstakingly recorded by Scandinavian scholars, as well as providing an entirely fresh and convincing explanation of the Viking Age corpus ... Birgit Sawyer [has] offered models of patient and dispassionate research in potentially exciting and contested areas.

Tom Shippey, TLS