The subject treated here, how Bede's material on St Oswald of Northumbria was transformed and enriched by new motifs on the European continent until finally surfacing around 1525 in an Icelandic translation from the Low German, has occupied Marianne Kalinke since Hans Bekker-Nielsen and Ole Widding presented their studies on the Reykjahólabók in 1962 and the following years. It was argued that the ‘Ósvalds saga’ of the Icelandic manuscript must be a translation from a Low German text in which the holy king St Oswald, among others, is being portrayed as the Christianising king who married the daughter of a pagan predecessor in order to promote the whole country's conversion to Christ. A Low German version, printed in 1492, was proposed as the text used by the Icelandic translator. The editor of the present volume refuted this idea for the first time at the Eighth Saga Conference in Gothenburg in August 1991, developing her arguments in her monograph The book of Reykjahólar (Toronto 1996). The volume under review brings together critical editions of both texts and full English translations – a highly praiseworthy undertaking. Kalinke argues that the Icelandic translator cannot possibly have had the Low German ‘Van sunte Oswaldo deme konninghe’ in front of him while producing ‘Ósvalds saga’, but rather some other lost Low German version(s) of the legend of St Oswald. The Icelandic translator's role, then, would not have been an independent and creative one, as first suggested; he was merely transmitting some of the continental text traditions of St Oswald's legend: ‘there is no evidence that he was anything but a careful and exact translator of his sources, although occasionally he did make mistakes’ (p. 21). Posed in this way the problem is reduced to one of textual arguments – which to a medieval historian seems somewhat astonishing, considering the number of other interesting issues raised by the hagiography of this holy king, beyond the elaboration upon the Coronation motive and the Bridal Quest narrative. The raven serving the king as his messenger is given no place in Kalinke's discussion; neither this motif, nor the fact that the limbs of St Oswald were hanged and not pinned on a pole, seem worthy of being integrated into the problem – both traits have been seen as linking Oswald and his cult to survivals of the Wotan cult (cf. Erich Hoffmann, Die heiligen Könige bei den Angelsachsen und den skandinavischen Völkern, Neumünster 1975, and English literature quoted by him). In an Icelandic context pagan times were nearer at hand than in England and the wish of an Icelander to distance legendary embellishments by stressing true Christian values in King Oswald should not be underestimated.