The survival of medieval drinking horns in Scandinavia is remarkable. Vivian Etting has set a catalogue of the twenty-eight medieval drinking horns in the National Museum of Denmark in a context that ranges from classical antiquity to the twentieth century, and in doing so provides a very readable and well-illustrated account of the use of an object in different times and social contexts. She sketches out both the Roman origin, showing a fine drinking dinner from Pompeii and fine Roman glass horns, and also the northern Celtic background. Two chapters are devoted to ‘Drinking horns in written sources and oral tradition’ and ‘Medieval art’.

After a supposed gap in the twelfth and early thirteenth century, she detects a revival of the drinking horn among both the nobility and also the clergy in the later Middle Ages. The use of drinking horns in clubs and fraternities was again rekindled in the romantic revival of the drinking horn in the nineteenth century. One theme throughout the book is the changing role of women in the use of the horn. This is well brought out by the comparison of the first illustration (of an obese lady with a horn dating from 23,000 bc) with the last (the smiling Crown Prince Frederik about to empty a large drinking horn on his admittance to the Royal Copenhagen Shooting Society and Danish Brotherhood in 1991). Another theme is the use of inscriptions on drinking horns, which range from the runic to the obscure medieval. Here it is a pity that the author does not mention the runic inscription on the Gallehus horns, about which Mindy MacLeod and Bernard Mees have written so well in their Runic Amulets and Magic Objects (MacLeod and Mees Reference MacLeod and Mees2006, pp 175–7). Alas, some of the photographs in the catalogue often do not show the inscriptions clearly. The use of inscriptions calls out for a more detailed analysis in the context of the social use of horns. The repeated use of the inscription with the names of the Three Kings (Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar) is one example. The inscription on no. 4142 is in German, and this may suggest that this is an import from northern Germany. Finials, often the only remains of archaeologically found horns, such as those from Taplow, are included and it may well be that the finial displayed in the exhibition catalogue English Romanesque Art 1066–1200 (Zarnecki Reference Zarnecki1984, no. 254) is a finial from a drinking horn rather than a small shrine.

Another way in which the subject might be explored further is a more detailed examination of the horns themselves, which are a remarkable piece of archaeozoology. The author’s use of the evidence of horns on Danish medieval seals is notable. Clearly the Drukken family used horns, which then became a feature of their heraldry and associated families. But here also is a verbal pun on naming since Drukken meant ‘Drunk’. This book will provide a basis for further work and Vivian Etting should be congratulated for drawing our attention to this fascinating subject.