My research focuses on three main areas within Old Norse and medieval Nordic studies: Old Norse prosimetrum, particularly in the Icelandic fornaldarsögur (legendary sagas); medieval and early modern Norwegian law; and medieval Faroese ballads.

My scholarly trajectory began with the relationship between prose and poetry in Old Norse literature, especially the prosimetric sagas, before expanding to the transmission, translation, and material history of medieval legal texts, and more recently to Faroese ballad tradition, performance, and oral transmission.

These strands are united by a broader interest in the cultural, historical, and book-historical contexts that shaped medieval Nordic literary and manuscript traditions. Across my work, I examine how texts were composed, transmitted, performed, adapted, and understood within changing social and cultural settings.

My research is interdisciplinary in method, combining philology, literary analysis, and manuscript studies with approaches drawn from legal history, performance studies, and oral tradition research. Through this work, I aim to contribute to a richer understanding of medieval Nordic textual cultures and their afterlives.

I teach and supervise broadly across Old Norse Philology and associated study skills at all levels. 

See a complete overview of publications in NVA.

Most recent book

The Völsung Ballads from the Faroe Islands in English Translation. Translated by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen and Mortan Nolsøe Jacobsen. York: ARC Humanities Press, 2025 (214 pages) https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/100375

The open-access book The Völsung Ballads from the Faroe Islands (2025) presents translations of thirteen Faroese ballads (with Mortan N. Jacobsen), together with scholarly analysis and ballad summaries (by Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen). It offers insight into the cultural tradition that has preserved these narratives, highlights the enduring significance of Faroese oral tradition, and makes this important material accessible to a wider international audience.

2026. PI. Centre for Advanced Study Short Term Fellowship, The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. “Ballads Across Borders (BARD) III: The Völsung Ballads across Media and Time.” One month fellowship for two people.

2024-2026. PI. Centre for Advanced Study Alumni Fellowship, The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. “Ballads Across Borders (BARD): Theoretical Approaches and Research Infrastructure” for Faroese Ballads.

2021-2022. PI. Young Centre for Advanced Study Fellowship, The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. 2021–2022. “Ballads Across Borders (BARD): The Faroe Islands in the Norse Story-Telling World.”

2021. Co-leader of the “Recycling Medieval Law” project. Funded by University of Bergen’s Strategy for the Humanities 2018-2022: Seed Money for Cross-Faculty Collaboration. 

2018-2023. PI. Research Grant from the Trond Mohn Foundation and University of Bergen, Norway. Six person project. “Transformations of Medieval Law: Innovation and Application in Early Modern Norwegian Law Books.”