Joan Turville-Petre

Joan Elizabeth Turville-Petre (10 May 1911 – 9 March 2006) was a noted academic at Oxford University, England, in the field of Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic and Scandinavian language studies.

Joan Turville-Petre (née Blomfield) was the daughter of Sam Blomfield of Colchester, Essex. In 1930 she began her studies at Somerville College, Oxford University^[1] and she maintained a lifelong connection with the college. She was a Tutor and Fellow from 1941 to 1946, a Lecturer in English from 1946 to 1965 and an Honorary College Research Fellow from 1965 until her death in 2006.

On 7 January 1943, Joan Turville-Petre married Gabriel Turville-Petre, a fellow Oxford academic working in the same field. J. R. R. Tolkien and his wife were among the guests.^[2] They had three sons: Thorlac Francis Samuel (born 6 January 1944), Merlin Oswald (born 2 July 1946) and Brendan Arthur Auberon (16 September 1948 – 6 December 1981).

Joan Turville-Petre died at the age of 94. Her funeral was held at St Michael's, Aylsham on 23 March 2006.^[3][4]

Selected publications

• "Runes and the Gothic alphabet" Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 12 (1937–45) 177–94; 209–31
• "Studies on the Ormulum MS." Journal of English and German Philology 46(1) (January 1947), 1-27
• The story of Rauð and his sons Trans. from the Icelandic by J.E. Turville-Petre. Viking Society for Northern Research. Payne Memorial Series II. (1947)
• "Hengest and Horsa" Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 14 (1953-7) 273-90
• "Sources of the Vernacular Homily in England, Norway and Iceland" Arkiv för Nordik Filologi 75 (1960), 168-82.
• "Translations of a Lost Penitential Homily" Traditio 19 (1963) 51-78
• "The metre of Icelandic court poetry" Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 17 (1966–69) 326–51
• "Beowulf and Grettis saga: An excursion" Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 19 (1974–77) 347–57
• "The genealogist and history: Ari to Snorri" Saga-Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 20 (1978–81) 7–23
• The Old English "Exodus" Text, translation and commentary by J. R. R. Tolkien; edited by Joan Turville-Petre. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1981)
• Meulengracht Sørensen, Preben The unmanly man: concepts of sexual defamation in early northern society Trans. by Joan Turville-Petre. Odense: Odense University Press (1983)
• Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson A Piece of Horse Liver: Myth, Ritual, and Folklore in Old Icelandic Sources Trans. by Terry Gunnell and Joan Turville-Petre, Háskólaútgáfan Félagsvísindastofnun (1998)

References