Gripla is an open-access peer-reviewed journal published annually by the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies (Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum) at the University of Iceland (Háskóli Íslands). It publishes articles in English, Icelandic, the Scandinavian languages, French, and German on topics within the field of Icelandic and Old Norse studies. The most recent volume (30) was published in December 2019 as part of the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies' Rit series, and was edited by Haukur Þorgeirsson and Elizabeth Walgenbach. It comprises eight articles, four in English and four in Icelandic; the contributions are ordered in such a way that those written in English alternate with those written in Icelandic. All articles contain summaries and keywords in both English and Icelandic. The contributions reflect research from scholars located primarily in Iceland, but also Germany and the United Kingdom. The topics range from mythological beings to scribal culture among Icelandic immigrants in North America, and there is a strong emphasis on postmedieval manuscripts, texts, and interpretations of earlier materials and figures.

The first article is by Katelin Parsons, who chronicles the life, career, and influence of Albert Jóhannesson (1847–1921) of Hecla Island, Manitoba, and catalogues the four surviving Canadian manuscripts in Albert's hand: Jóhannesson A-C and NIHM 020012.3301 (an image of which is featured on the journal's cover and in the article itself). Parsons provides a detailed overview of the contents of Albert's manuscripts, with a particular focus on his textual exemplars and how he [End Page 408] might be characterized as a scribe, compiler, and storyteller. The article concludes with a discussion of the broader scribal community on Hecla Island, which can be seen within the context of Icelandic manuscript culture in North America. The second contribution is by Kolbrún Haraldsdóttir, and treats the medieval manuscript tradition of Eiríks saga víðfǫrla (The Saga of Eiríkur the Traveler). The article provides a brief overview of how the saga has been characterized in recent scholarship before moving to an analysis of five medieval manuscripts preserving the versions A and B of the saga, with a particular focus on the saga's position in the manuscripts and the other works with which it was grouped. The author demonstrates that in the case of the five medieval manuscripts, the saga was placed in an introductory position and functioned to remind the readers of salvation history and thereby provided a kind of framework for the subsequent sagas.

Tom Grant's "A Problem of Giant Proportions: Distinguishing Risar and Jötnar in Old Icelandic Saga Material" comes next, and makes the case for differentiating between two words that have both been translated as "giant" in English: risi and jötunn. The author argues that while the term jötunn was "saturated with complex mythological associations by the time that saga authors employed it" (p. 84), the more religiously-neutral term risi appears to have been used primarily to describe giantlike beings that were "foreign," and part of other literary and cultural traditions. An analysis of the different associations of the two types of giantlike beings in the sagas follows, and the article concludes with a proposal that the terms risi and jötunn be used in scholarship to maintain the semantic distinction between the two groups.

A co-authored piece by Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir and Árni Heimir Ingólfsson on the manuscript AM 461 12mo is the fourth article in the volume. In its present state, the early sixteenth-century manuscript AM 461 12mo (of which a detailed codicological description is provided) contains various ecclesiastical materials, prayers, and Latin hymns with musical notation; the prayers and songs are the focus of the article, and the authors examine them in relation to the other materials in the manuscript (ranging from a liturgical calendar to excerpts of church law) and consider...