especially interested in the origins of the dróttkvætt, which he believed to be derived from Celtic, particularly Irish, influences. In 1954 he had already published a celebrated paper in Icelandic on that particular subject, which was later translated into English and published under the title ''On the poetry of the scalds and of the filid. He saw clear parallels between the Norse skalds and the Irish filí. Turville-Petre's research on Old Norse poetry culminated in his publishing of Scaldic Poetry (1976). It devoted particular focus to early Icelandic poets such as Egill Skallagrímsson and Þjóðólfr of Hvinir. Scaldic Poetry provides testimony to his mastery of the subject as a result of a long life of passionate study. Death and legacy Turville-Petre died of cancer in Oxford on 17 February 1978. He bequeathed his personal library to the English Faculty Library of Oxford University (Icelandic Collections). At Oxford, the room which houses the university's collection of books on Old Norse and Icelandic is named after him. Speculum Norroenum (1981), a festschrift in Turville-Petre's honor edited by Ursula Dronke, was published by the University Press of Southern Denmark after his death. The festshcrift included an affectionate memoir of Turville-Petre by his Icelandic friend Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, some of whose works Turville-Petre had translated from Icelandic into English. Turville-Petre was highly regarded as a teacher and academic supervisor, and was responsible for the tutoring of generations of scholars in his fields. At Oxford he supervised students from all over the world, who would later come to hold prominent academic posts in numerous countries. His research and works have made major contributions to knowledge of Norse culture and Icelandic literature. Personal life Turville-Petre married Joan Elizabeth Blomfield on 7 January 1943. She was a distinguished scholar on Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse studies at Oxford. They had three sons: Thorlac Francis Samuel (born 6 January 1944), Merlin Oswald (born 2 July 1946) and Brendan Arthur Auberon (born 16 September 1948). Turville-Petre had a strong passion and great knowledge of ornithology. Selected works "The Cult of Freyr in the Evening of Paganism" Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society 111(6):317-322 (1935) "The Traditions of Víga-Glúms Saga" Transactions of the Philological Society 54-75 (1936) Víga-Glúms Saga, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1940) The Life of Gudmund the Good, Bishop of Holar Trans: E. O. G. Turville-Petre and E. S. Olszewska. Coventry, The Viking Society for Northern Research (1942)