Introduction: on Anglo-Saxon things
1 Æschere's head, Grendel's mother and the sword that isn't a sword: unreadable things in Beowulf
2 The 'thingness' of time in the Old English riddles of the Exeter Book and Aldhelm's Latin enigmata
3 The riddles of the Franks Casket: enigmas, agency and assemblage
4 Assembling and reshaping Christianity in the Lives of St Cuthbert and Lindisfarne Gospels
5 The Dream of the Rood and the Ruthwell monument: fragility, brokenness and failure
Afterword: old things with new things to say
Index