Dr Tom Morcom

My article on Njáls saga, Skarpheðinn, and the utility of insults is out! I hugely enjoyed writing this and would love to know what you all think of it. brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.148…

Please consider submitting an abstract for the workshop I’m participating in this autumn in Oslo!

My article in Gripla dropped just in time for Christmas! Here's my take on the sources, dating & composition of Íslendingabók, the oldest surviving history of Iceland. gripla.arnastofnun.is/index.php/grip… Many thanks to the Gripla team, they do an incredible job! #medieval

UCL’s Medieval Scandinavia Seminar is running this term - all welcome!

I had lots of fun recording this! Come find out more about quirky Viking Age burial practices.

The first CSVA seminar of the year is fast approaching! Join us to hear Dr Alexander Wilson from University of Leicester's @bodypoliticsERC talk about ‘Marks of non-personhood: violence against unfree bodies in the Viking world’. #Vikings 18 November @ 5pm | Trent B40

It’s been lovely to read more widely again in my new post and its prompted me to write creatively again for the first time in ages

Prepping a Comparative Literature class tomorrow and I’m blown away by Lorna Goodison’s poem about the translation of Cuthbert to Durham. While it’s not constrained to imitation you can still hear echoes of old English alliterative metre and kenning, a faint sense of elegy

@quothgareth @BasilAPrice @LittleAsALeaf @bre_leake Massive thanks to you and Caz for your tireless work as editors too!

@DJMHarland You absolutely love to see this- well done James!

It’s the start of term and I’m gearing up for a year as Associate Lecturer in Old Norse at UCL. After a couple of years of pure research, I’m genuinely excited to be back teaching: a heady blend of old Norse, Nordic history, history of the book, and comparative literature!

Old English will only ever be Kennings for Beginners. Old Norse skalds will casually drop rausnarsamr Gripnis ríðviggs gnapsólar gnýstœrandi — ‘the magnificent increaser of the noise of the jutting sun of the riding horse of Gripnir’ to describe a warrior and not break a sweat..

@npctk421 The issue of moral depth doesn’t mean ‘does good’ as orcs invariably do bad in Lotr, but rather ‘has the capacity to discern good from evil’ and thus can be Saved just like a fallen person, a situation Tolkien realised with some trepidation, would require treating them with mercy

@npctk421 Tolkien in a 1954 letter described orcs as ‘fundamentally a race of rational incarnate creature though horribly corrupted, if no more so than many Men to be met today.’

Strange how everyone is presenting the morality of Tolkien's orcs in the books as cut and dry, as if Tolkien didn't find the problem he'd caused of a sentient, speaking race (fallen elves!) being wholly evil as perhaps THE major incompatibility between LotR and his Catholic faith

My article on the construction of masculinities in Wulfstan’s homilies is out (and open access)! Massive thanks to @quothgareth and Caz Batten for all their work as editors: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

@BasilAPrice Looking forward to reading this Basil!

Very happy to say that my article, “Sufficient Tragedy: Masculinity as Cruel Optimism in Beowulf” is now published in English Studies. doi.org/10.1080/001383… (should be ☀️OPEN ACCESS☀️shortly!)

@chaseAEd The idea of Gondorian boys playing at 'orc-cults' is really interesting, thanks for flagging this up!

@ThomasMorcom …seem like the perfect themes for a LOTR sequel to explore and would’ve finally reconciled the orc issue with Tolkien’s theology.

@heritagepilgrim @howardmrw ahah yes, exactly! Mr Nutt, the enlightened orc, asking himself 'Do I have worth?'

@providenceluvr Tolkien scholars write earnestly of the “orcish question” this is not a can of worms of my making

@ThomasMorcom I feel like Wikipedia does not need a chart on orcish morality in theological context

This isn't a woke reinvention of the source material - the redeemability of orcs is an issue anyone creating in Middle Earth has to grapple with and the issue plagued Tolkien and was obvious to his earliest critics. RoP seems to have just picked one of the few available solutions

Tolkien throws so many different solutions at the problem of orcish morality and the result is an unholy mess of both bestial, demonic, and personlike traits. But as a more sentimental man than some watchers of the Rings of Power, he also often gifts orcs with real moral depth: