Oddaannálar og Oddverjaannáll. Edited by Eiríkur Pormódsson and Gudrún Ása Grímsdóttir. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Islandi, 2003. Pp. clxxxi + 236. ISK 3,591.


Oddi, a place in southwestern Iceland that was famous during the Middle Ages for its rich church farm inhabited for several generations by a prominent family, figures in the titles of the two texts edited in this volume. In fact, most compilers and copyists credit Sæmundur frodi, priest at Oddi for half a century around 1200, with the authorship of Oddaann¶lar and his descendants (�the men [verja] of Oddi”) with Oddverjaann¶ll. Doubts of such ancient origins were first expressed in the eighteenth century by JÊn "lafsson from Grunnavçk and Bishop Finnur JÊnsson, but serious scholarly work on the Icelandic annals did not begin until 1888, when Gustav Storm published his edition, Islandske Annaler indtil 1578. Because of the geographic and chronological scope and the genre of the texts under consideration hereæthey are more chronicles than annalsæStorm ignored Oddaann¶lar (except for a brief Excurs) but treated at length Oddverjaann¶ll and published generous excerpts. In other words, the two texts are published here in their entirety for the first time.

Jenny Jochens
Baltimore, Maryland