Natalie Jayne Goodison, . Medieval Animals. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2022, xv, 197, 18 b/w figures, 11 plates.

In the wake of increased interest in ecocritical aspects in the Middle Ages, animals have also attracted much more curiosity than before. Undoubtedly, the swan mattered deeply, both for heraldic and religious reasons. The swan was, so to speak, a royal bird, consumed at particular feasts, displayed in public, and claimed as a symbolic animal for royal or princely houses. Until today, we talk about the ‘swansong’ or appreciate the swan as a graceful, noble fowl. Since the swan figured in so many different contexts throughout the Middle Ages, it proves to be a valuable topic for a monographic treatment, here offered by Natalie Jayne Goodison (Durham University). She deserves considerable respect for her meticulous and expansive collections of references to philosophical, theological, literary, historical, and medical sources addressing or dealing with the swan. In the course of her investigations, she draws mostly from English, French, and German sources from the entire Middle Ages, which is a bit more than we are used to by English medievalists, but still leaves out much of medieval Europe, whether we think of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, or Scandinavia (here with one exception, the