I originally checked this out just for the translation of the Lacnunga, but I ended up reading the exegetic materials as well because they were so fascinating and well-structured. Grattan and Singer are classic academics, motivated by an adoration of their work that sometimes manifests as derision towards its own inherently unacademic nature. For example, they roast people for not drawing bees correctly, for their non-Linnaean grasp of botany, for their degraded Greek, Latin, and Gaelic. But their love of the work is strong, which is evident from the careful and serious attention paid to the central text and its world. This mixture of derision and keen interest feels particularly that’s academia, baby! and it was a pleasure to read. The joke's on the scholars.

The Lacnunga itself is absolutely worth the time to read. I ordinarily seek out texts like this (i.e., heavily specialized and archaic) for poetic reasons, because the juxtaposition of familiar words in an unfamiliar context sparks something in my spirit. As Grattan and Singer point out, folk magic of the kind they are curating here is syncretic, and to see so many cultures and languages and words tumbled together in an Anglo-Saxon text made for the kind of ethereal and nigh-inaccessible reading that makes my heart sing. I walked away with a glimpse across eras, with poetry in my mind. An old book for the witches and scribes, one that effaces time, and the words are written on us.