He attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; and received his PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 1976, presenting the thesis "The textual history of the Welsh-Latin Historia Brittonum". He is professor emeritus of Celtic & Anglo-Saxon at the University of Aberdeen.
A scholar who specialized in Old English, Celtic languages, and Germanic studies attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; and earned his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1976 with a dissertation on "The textual history of the Welsh-Latin Historia Brittonum". He is now emeritus professor of Celtic & Anglo-Saxon at the University of Aberdeen.