Alaric's research focuses on early medieval Britain and medieval and early modern Scandinavia. His doctoral work examined the relationships between societies, their beliefs in supernatural beings and powers, and the role of language and texts in the creation and transmission of those beliefs. His more recent work focuses on linguistic contact, interlinguistic communication, and Icelandic sagas. Particular projects are:

Working papers (any comments about these are welcome!): 'Making Stemmas with Small Samples: Testing the Stemma of Konráðs saga keisarasonar, and New Media Approaches to Publishing Stemmas', intended for journal publication. 'The Instability of Place-Names in Anglo-Saxon England and Early Medieval Wales, and the Loss of Roman Toponymy', intended for publication in an article collection. 'Madness, Medication--and Self-Induced Hallucination? Elleborus (and Woody Nightshade) in Anglo-Saxon England, 700-900', intended for publication in due course in the second volume of plant-name studies by the Anglo-Saxon Plant-Name Survey. 'Elleborus in Anglo-Saxon England, 900–1100: Tunsingwyrt and Wodewistle', also for the Anglo-Saxon Plant-Name Survey.

• Morality and health: along with Markku Hokkanen and Jari Eilola, Alaric's beginning a joint monograph on how nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western clinical medicine defined itself in contradistinction to 'primitive' medieval and colonial traditions, and how in fact cultural links between morality and health in modern medicine and its imposition on colonial societies show a significant inheritance from earlier European traditions. Alaric's contribution focuses on the history and historiography of medieval Scandinavian and English charms, medicine and witchcraft.
  • Cf. book on elves (2007); article on orality (2008); special section in Asclepio on moral transgression (2009).
  
  
• Medieval Scandinavian romance (its cultural meanings, and its transmission): Alaric is translating some sagas; using computer-assisted stemmatology to reconstruct the transmission of several romance-sagas across a large number of manuscripts; and off the back of all this, studying a few sagas in depth from literary and cultural perspectives. So far, Alaric's been looking in particular at Sigurðar saga fóts, Sigurgarðs saga frækna, Jarlmanns saga og Hermanns, Nikulás saga leikara and Konráðs saga keisarasonar.
  • Cf. working paper on stemmas; article on Branwen (2001); article on Heiðreks saga (2005); translation of Sigurðar saga fóts; Alaric's Sigurgarður resources page.
  
  
• Interlinguistic communication, and language contact: how did people from different language backgrounds communicate, and what does this tell us about their lives, and about language-change? Alaric explores the interplay of languages in early medieval England, particularly using place-name evidence, and in the high medieval Nordic world, particularly using the evidence of fourteenth-century sagas.
  • Cf. article on the instability of Anglo-Saxon and Welsh place-names (working paper); article on language in Bede (2010); article on place-names in Bede; contribution to article by Fox (2007).
  • Related studies are: note on the etymology of Adel (2009); article on orality (2008); article on elves in place-names (2006); article on Old English diphthongs (2001).
  
  
• Alliums (leeks, garlic, onions, etc.) in the early medieval north-west: this is Alaric's current focus within the Anglo-Saxon Plant-Name Survey. The genus is an interesting one: early Germanic speakers were inclined to write runic inscriptions reading only laukaz ('leek'); leeks are prominent bases for metaphors in medieval Scandinavian poetry; alliums were key food-plants in early Ireland; and alliums appear widely in Old English medical texts. As well as being of intrinsic interest, this work connects with Alaric's interest in medicine and fertility.
  • See working paper on tunsingwyrt. Cf. other working paper on elleborus.
  
  
• Witchcraft in early modern Scotland: this is a sideline that Alaric visits for intellectual holidays. Great material, great period, and it's always nice to do research connected with countries where you've worked :-) At the moment, Alaric's working on early medieval antecedents for witchcraft beliefs attested in early modern Scotland.
  • Cf. article on elf-shot (2005); article on Stein Maltman (2006); article on eldritch (2007); book on elves (2007); short piece on fairies (2008).