Prof Judy Quinn

Professor of Old Norse Literature

Fellow of Newnham College

Contact Information

Newnham College, Cambridge, CB3 9DF (+44 1223 335819)
Department of ASNC
Faculty of English, 9 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DP
Office: S-R37 (+44-1223-767317), email: jeq20@cam.ac.uk  

Departmental and College Responsibilities

  • Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic 
  • Director of Studies in ASNC for Newnham College and King's College 
  • Teaching in Old Norse language and literature (Part I, Paper 6), Advanced Medieval Scandinavian language and literature (Part II, Paper 6) and Textual Criticism (Pt II, Paper 10)
  • Supervision of graduate students in Old Norse literature 

Academic Interests

  • Old Norse eddic and skaldic poetry; Old Norse prosimetrum; the valkyrie in Old Norse poetry; Old Norse saga literature; orality and literacy in medieval Scandinavia; theory and praxis in the editing of Old Norse texts.
  • Principal Investigator, 'The Íslendingasögur as Prosimetrum' (DFG-AHRC Bilateral grant), 2020-2023 
  • President, Viking Society for Northern Research (2014–16), Council Member (2017–19)
  • Corresponding member, Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy (Sweden)
  • Editor, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia (Brepols)
  • Editor-in-chief, Studies in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia (Brepols)
  • Member of Editorial Board, Gripla (Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Reykjaví­k)

Selected Publications

  • (with Carolyne Larrington) ‘Speaking Her Mind: The Female Voices out of Jötunheimar’, in Luflice ond Freondlice: Studi in onore di Maria Elena Ruggerini, ed. Carla Cucina, Lorenzo Lozzi Gallo and Veronka Szoke (Milan: Prometheus, 2024), pp. 397–422

  • ‘Mythological Poetry’, in The Cambridge History of Old Norse–Icelandic Literature, ed. Heather O’Donoghue and Eleanor Parker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024), pp. 135–161

  • The Creativity Paradox: Verse Quotation in the Íslendingasögur, Mediävistische Perspektiven 14 (Zürich: Chronos, 2023)
  • ed. ‘The poetry in Eyrbyggja saga’, in Margaret Clunies Ross, Kari Ellen Gade and Tarrin Wills (eds), Poetry in Sagas of Icelanders, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022), pp. 402–15 and 442–74
  • (with Brynja Þorgeirsdóttir, Stefanie Gropper, Tarrin Wills and Alexander Wilson) ‘Investigating the Íslendingasögur as Prosimetrum: A New Methodology’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 18 (2022): 51-81

  • ‘Þuríðr Barkardóttir and the poetry of Eyrbyggja saga’, in Þáttasyrpa — Studien zu Literatur, Kultur und Sprache in Nordeuropa. Festschrift für Stefanie Gropper, ed. Anna Katharina Heiniger, Rebecca Merkelbach and Alexander Wilson, Beiträge zur Nordischen Philologie 72 (Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 2022), pp. 167-77

  • ‘Anonymity and the Textual Construction of Authority in Prosimetrum’, in In Search of the Culprit / Andere Ästhetik, ed. Lukas Rösli and Stefanie Gropper (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021), pp. 123-139 (Available at: In Search of the Culprit)

  • (with Carolyne Larrington) ‘‘‘I remember giants”: Mythological Remembering through Völuspá’, in Myth, Magic, and Memory in Early Scandinavian Narrative Culture, ed. Jürg Glauser and Pernille Hermann, Acta Scandinavica 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 47-62

  •  ‘Post-human perspectives on ragna rök’, in Res, Artes et Religio, ed. Sabine Walther, Regina Jucknies, Judith Meurer-Bongardt and Jens Eike Schnall (Leeds: Kismet, 2021), pp. 479-90 (Available at: http://kismet.press/portfolio/res-artes-et-religio/)

  • ‘Fifth-Column Mother: Týr’s Parentage according to Hymiskviða’, in Making the Profane Sacred in the Viking Age, ed. Irene García Losquiño, Olof Sundqvist and Declan Taggart, TCNE 32 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), pp. 171-82

  • ‘Orality, textuality and performance’, in A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre, ed. Massimiliano Bampi, Carolyne Larrington and Sif Rikharðsdóttir (Cambridge: D S Brewer, 2020), pp. 73-88

  • ‘Gender’, in Histories and Structures. Social, Geographical and Historical Contexts and Communication between Worlds, ed. Jens Peter Schjødt, John Lindow and Anders Andrén, Pre-Christian Religions of the North 1, 4 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), Vol II, pp. 509-27

  • ‘Valkyries’, in Histories and Structures. Conceptual Frameworks: The Cosmos and Collective Supernatural Beings, ed. Jens Peter Schjødt, John Lindow and Anders Andrén, Pre-Christian Religions of the North 1, 4 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), Vol III, pp. 1513-26
  •  ‘Of snakes and women: the interpretation of the early stone carvings of Gotland: Response to Stephen Mitchell’s ‘Ormhäxan, Dragons, Parturition and Tradition’, in Myth, Materiality and Lived Religion in Merovingian and Viking Scandinavia, ed. Olof Sundqvist (Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 2019), pp. 135–39 
  • ‘Looking ahead to what is long past: The mediality of Jóreiðr’s dreaming in Sturlunga saga’ in RE:writing. Medial Perspectives on Textual Culture in the Icelandic Middle Ages, ed. Kate Heslop and Jürg Glauser, Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen 29 (Zürich: Chronos, 2018), pp. 85–105
  • ‘Calling attention to the past: The decorated initial of Gamle kongelige sammlung 2365 4o, 20r’, in Skandinavische Schriftlandschaften, ed. Klaus Müller-Wille, Kate Heslop, Anna Katharina Richter and Lukas Rösli, Beiträge zur Nordischen Philologie 59 (Tübingen: Narr Francke Atempto, 2017), pp. 64–67
  • ‘Darraðarljóð and Njáls saga’, in Die Faszination des Verborgenen und seine Entschlüsselung: Rāði sāʀ kunni. Beiträge zur Runologie, skandinavistischen Mediävistik und germanischen Sprachwisschenschaft, ed. Jana Krüger et al., Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 101 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), pp. 299–313
  • ‘Kennings and other forms of figurative language in eddic poetry’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 288–309
  • ‘The editing of eddic poetry’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, ed. Carolyne Larrington, Judy Quinn and Brittany Schorn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 58–71
  • (ed., with Carolyne Larrington and Brittany Schorn), A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) ISBN 978-1-107-13544-4. Pp. xii + 413
  • ‘The Principles of Textual Criticism and the Interpretation of Old Norse Texts Derived from Oral Tradition’, in Studies in the Transmission and Reception of Old Norse Literature: The Hyperborean Muse, ed. Judy Quinn and Adele Cipolla, Acta Scandinavica 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 47–78
  • (with Adele Cipolla) ‘Introduction’, in Studies in the Transmission and Reception of Old Norse Literature: The Hyperborean Muse, ed. Judy Quinn and Adele Cipolla, Acta Scandinavica 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 1–18
  • (ed., with Adele Cipolla), Studies in the Transmission and Reception of Old Norse Literature: The Hyperborean Muse, Acta Scandinavica 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016) ISBN 978-2-503-55553-9. Pp. xvi + 355
  • ‘What Frigg Knew: The Goddess as Prophetess in Old Norse Mythology’, in Dee, profetesse, regine e altre figure femminili nel Medioevo germanico, Atti del XL Convegno dell’Associazione Italiana di Filologia Germanica (Cagliari, 29-31 maggio 2013), ed. Maria Elena Ruggerini and Veronika Szöke (Cagliari: CUEC, 2015), pp. 67–88
  • ‘Precarious ties: The social critique of dynastic networking in eddic heroic poetry’, in Applications of Network Theories, ed. Susanne Kramarz-Bein and Birge Hilsmann, Skandinavistik 10 (Berlin: LIT, 2015), pp. 33–70
  • ‘Scenes of vindication: Three Icelandic heroic poems in relation to the continental traditions of Þiðreks saga af Bern and the Nibelungenlied’, in Medieval Nordic Literature in its European Context, ed. Else Mundal (Oslo: Dreyer, 2015), pp. 78–125
  • ‘Mythologizing the sea: the Nordic sea-deity Rán’, in Nordic Mythologies: Interpretations, Institutions, Intersections, ed. Tim Tangherlini, The Wildcat Canyon Advanced Seminars: Mythology 1 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: North Pinehurst Press, 2014), pp. 71–97
  • ‘Death and the king: Grottasöngr in its eddic context’, Scripta Islandica 64 (2013): 39–65 (pdf)
  • ‘Mythological motivation in eddic heroic poetry: interpreting Grottasöngr’, in Revisiting the Poetic Edda. Essays on Old Norse Heroic Legend, ed. Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 159–182
  • ‘The “Wind of the Giantess”: Snorri Sturluson, Rudolf Meissner and the Interpretation of Mythological Kennings along Taxonomic Lines’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 8 (2012): 207–259 (pdf)
  • (ed., with Emily Lethbridge), Creating the Medieval Saga: Versions, Variability and Editorial Interpretations of Old Norse Saga Literature, The Viking Collection 18 (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2010), pp. 334
  • ‘Introduction’, in Creating the Medieval Saga: Versions, Variability and Editorial Interpretations of Old Norse Saga Literature, The Viking Collection 18 (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark. 2010), pp. 13–37
  • ‘Liquid Knowledge: Traditional Conceptualisations of Learning in Eddic Poetry’, in Along the Oral-Written Continuum: Types of Texts, Relations and their Implications, ed. Slavica Rankovic, Leidulf Melve and Else Mundal, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 20 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 175–217
  • ‘Betrothal and betrayal: the eddic tradition's treatment of Sigurðr’, in Á austrvega. Saga and East Scandinavia: Preprint papers of The 14th International Saga Conference, ed. Agneta Ney, Henrik Williams and Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Papers from the department of Humanities and Social Sciences 14 (Gävle: Gävle University Press, 2009), II, pp. 783–87
  • ‘The Endless Triangles of Eddic Tragedy: Reading Oddrúnargrátr’, in Studi anglo-norreni in onore di John S. McKinnell, ed. Maria Elena Ruggerini (Cagliari: CUEC, 2009), pp. 304–326
  • ‘The Realisation of Mythological Design: The Early Generations of the Völsung Dynasty’, in The Legendary Sagas: Myths and Reality. Studies in the Old Icelandic Fornaldarsögur, ed. Annette Lassen, Agneta Ney and Ármann Jakobsson (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2009), pp. 123–142
  • ‘“Hildr Prepares a Bed for Most Helmet-Damagers”: Snorri's Treatment of a Traditional Poetic Motif in his Edda’, in Reflections on Old Norse Myths, ed. Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt and Rasmus Tranum Kristensen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 95–118
  • (ed., with Kate Heslop and Tarrin Wills), Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World. Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 18 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007) ISBN 978-2-503-52580-8. Pp. xiv + 456
  • ‘Introduction’, in Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World. Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross, ed. Judy Quinn, Kate Heslop and Tarrin Wills, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 18 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 1–10
  • (ed.) ‘Interrogating Genre in the Fornaldarsögur: Round-Table Discussion’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 2 (2006), 276-96
  • ‘The gendering of death in eddic cosmology’, in Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives: Origins, Changes and Interactions, ed. Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert and Catharina Raudvere, Vägar til Midgård 8 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006), pp. 54–57
  • ‘The end of a fantasy: Sörla þáttr and the rewriting of the revivification myth’, in The Fantastic in Old Norse/Icelandic Literature I-II, ed. John McKinnell, David Ashurst and Donata Kick (Durham: Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), II, pp. 808–16
  • ‘Construing habitus in eddic dialogue: the order of stanzas in Oddrúnargrátr’, in Neue Ansätze in der Mittelalterphilologie/Nye Veier i middelalderfilologien. Akten der skandinavistischen Arbeitstagung in Münster vom 24.- 26.10. 2002, ed. Susanne Kramarz-Bein, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Germanistik und Skandinavistik 55 (Frankfurt am Main and Basel: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 83–95
  • ‘Women in Old Norse poetry and sagas’, in A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. Rory McTurk, Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture 31 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), pp. 518–35
  • ‘Trust in words: verse quotation and dialogue in Völsunga saga’, in Fornaldarsagornas Struktur och Ideologi, ed. Ármann Jakobsson, Annette Lassen and Agneta Ney, Nordiska Texter och Undersökningar 28 (Uppsala: Swedish Science Press, 2004), pp. 89–100
  • (trans.) The Saga of the People of Eyri, in Gisli Sursson’s Saga and The Saga of the People of Eyri (London: Penguin Classics, 2003), pp. 73–199
  • ‘Dialogue with a völva: Hyndluljóð, Baldrs draumar and Völuspá’, in The Poetic Edda. Essays on Old Norse Mythology, ed. Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 245–74
  • ‘Editing the Edda: the case of Völuspá’, Scripta Islandica 51 (2001), 69–92
  • ‘From orality to literacy in medieval Iceland’, in Medieval Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 30–60
  • ‘“Ok verðr henni ljóð á munni”: Prophetic Verse in the fornaldarsögur’, Alvíssmál 8 (1998), 29–50 (pdf)
  • ‘“Ok er þetta upphaf”: First Stanza Quotation in Old Norse Prosimetrum’, Alví­ssmál 7 (1997), 61–80 (pdf)
  • ‘Eddu list: the emergence of skaldic pedagogy in medieval Iceland’, Alvíssmál 4 (1995), 69–92 (pdf)
  • ‘The gygr, the völva, the Ásynja and her lover: meetings with remarkable women in the eddic poems’, in The Treasures of the Elder Tongue. Fifty Years of Old Norse in Melbourne, ed. Katrina Burge and John Stanley Martin (Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 1995), pp. 137–48
  • (with Margaret Clunies Ross) ‘The image of Norse poetry and myth in seventeenth-century England’, in Northern Antiquity, ed. Andrew Wawn (Enfield Lock: Hisarlik Press, 1994), pp. 189–210
  • ‘Völuspá in twentieth-century scholarship in English’, in Old Norse Studies in the New World, ed. Geraldine Barnes, Judy Quinn and Margaret Clunies Ross (Sydney: University of Sydney, 1994), pp. 120–37
  • ‘Verseform and voice in eddic poems: the discourses of Fáfnismál’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 107 (1992), 100–30
  • ‘Völuspá and the Composition of Eddic Verse’, in Atti del 12° congresso internazionale di studi sull'alto medioevo. Poetry in the Scandinavian Middle Ages, ed. Teresa Pàroli (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, 1990), pp. 303–20
  • ‘The Naming of Eddic Poems’, Parergon 8/2 (1990), 97–115
  • ‘The Use of Eddic Poetry in Contemporary Sagas’, Frá Suðlægri Strönd/From a Southern Shore 3 (1987), 54–72 [pdf]