Carolyne Larrington is Professor of Medieval European Literature, University of Oxford, and Official Fellow and Tutor in Medieval English, St John's College, Oxford. She teaches Old and Middle English, Old Norse and the English language to undergraduates and supervises dissertations in a range of medieval and modern literary fields. Her first degree was in medieval English language and literature from St Catherine’s College, Oxford and she wrote her DPhil thesis on gnomic poetry in Old English and Old Norse, published as A Store of Common Sense: Gnomic Themes and Style in Old Icelandic and Old English Wisdom Poetry (Oxford, 1993). Her research interests range widely between Old Norse-Icelandic, Arthurian literature, medieval European secular literature and, more recently, medievalism.
She has published the leading English language translation of the Old Norse Poetic Edda, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2014) and edited a number of essay collections on Old Norse literature, the most recent of which is (with Max Bampi and Sif Rikhardsdottir), A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre (Woodbridge, 2020). Other academic books include 2015. Brothers and Sisters in Medieval European Literature (2015) King Arthur’s Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition (2006) and the forthcoming Approaches to Emotion in Middle English Literature. In the field of medievalism, she has written two books on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones, the much translated Winter is Coming: the Medieval World of Game of Thrones (2015) and All Men Must Die: Power and Passion in Game of Thrones (2021). Her most recent medievalism publication is The Norse Myths that Shape the Way We Think (2023), a follow up to The Norse Myths (2017). She has published more than 40 articles and book chapters, has participated or produced a substantial number of podcasts and appears frequently on the radio in the UK and elsewhere.
Professor Larrington is also interested in folklore and place, writing The Land of the Green Man: A Journey through the Supernatural Landscapes of the British Isles in 2015, and participating in two important creative projects: ‘Modern Fairies and Loathly Ladies’ (2016-18) and HAG (Audible / Virago, 2019, 2020).