 I think there was a difference of opinion among the archaeologists. Well, you know, it's a real love of knowledge. I know it sounds corny, but I just love what I do for a living. I love the possibility of being able to look at material and try to find something that hasn't been thought of before, that hasn't been spoken of before, and really pull back these kind of curtains that are sometimes drawn on the past and understand the past at some levels. When I first met Steve, I was at a conference here at Orhus University. Some of my colleagues and myself organized a series of conferences about this specific topic. And since Steve is one of the absolutely central figures within the field of Orhus mythology, he was one of the guests that we wanted to invite. I think that the most important impact of Steve's studies is his focus on performance in the medieval texts. That has made it possible to conceptualize the texts and their contexts in new ways. I've been particularly interested in trying to discover new sources of information, new ways to understand the information. I've been particularly attracted to areas like magic and witchcraft and the history of women, to some extent the narrative culture and popular traditions of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. We gained a good partner at an internationally well-known university. We gained the possibility of international research exchange between one of the important research millers outside of Europe. We have had Old Norse summer schools where we have international colleagues teaching and these summers have been a meeting point, again not only dealing with teaching but which have made it possible for researchers to meet. Between our summer school and the ones that Orhus itself runs, many people have started calling Orhus the mecca of Old Norse studies in the summer because it's so perfect. There's so many scholars here, both resident on your faculty and then visitors. I think one of the really great developments of the last few decades has been a more genuinely multi-disciplinary approach, a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of culture and history. So we're no longer working just within our own little boxes that I only do this kind of field or that kind of field, but they're really taking into consideration the methodologies, the aims, the interpretations of people in ancillary disciplines, in neighboring disciplines, and so this is part of my attempt to do that, I guess, and understand what archaeologists are interested in. Right here in the exploration area, he's a very important person because he's sort of, well you can say he contextualize things for the students. He draws the big lines. So the next big project is one that I'm doing together with Penilla Herrmann from Orhus University and Jörg Glauser and Zurich. We're working on a one-or-two volume handbook of memory studies and pre-modern Scandinavian. Definitely I ask questions that historians don't ask. Their concerns and my concerns don't match up well, but certainly the historical material is what I'm completely drawn to and trying to understand it. Maybe in new, new, I hope, interesting ways. Dear Professor Mitchell, dear Stephen, your leading world authority in the field of medieval Scandinavian studies. You have published extensively in the field since 1987. You became a professor of Scandinavian and folklore at Harvard University. You have received numerous prizes and you're the editor of the Plastidious book series, The Milman-Perry Collection. You have developed new methods in the study of sagas, eddas, traditions, oral traditions, historiographies, and law in the past, and you have developed methods that make it possible for us to reach back into a past long gone. You have indeed drawn back the curtains on history and on Scandinavian studies. Your colleagues describe you as extremely generous. You're always available for discussions, for gap-togethers, for exchanges of ideas and thoughts. You are generous and wonderful host for visitors to your university. Your travels include frequent stays, long stays, occasionally here in all of the university. You come here to give lectures, to supervise, to work with colleagues, to publish papers, to prepare applications, indeed to exchange ideas. We are delighted that Ouse has won a place in your heart and mind and we treasure what you've done for this university. It is my pleasure and privilege to bestow upon you the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa at Ouse University. Congratulations, Professor Mitchell.