Born July 23, 1946, in Washington, DC; son of Wesley (a banker) and Eleanor (a teacher; maiden name, Niemetta) Lindow; married Katharine Forbes (a teacher), October 4, 1968; children: Megan, Devin. Education: Harvard University, A.B., 1968, Ph.D., 1972. Memberships: American Folklore Society, Mediaeval Academy of America, Association for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies, Royal Gustav Adolf Academy, Swedish Folklore Society. Addresses: Office: Department of Scandinavian, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.
University of California, Berkeley, acting assistant professor, 1972-74, assistant professor, 1974-77, associate professor, 1977-83, professor of Scandinavian, 1983--.
WRITINGS:
- Comitatus, Individual, and Honor: Studies in North Germanic Institutional Vocabulary, University of California Press, 1976.
- (Editor) Swedish Legends and Folktales, University of California Press, 1978.
- Myths and Legends of the Vikings, Bellerophon Books, 1980.
- Viking Ships, Belerophon Books, 1982.
- Scandinavian Mythology: An Annotated Bibliography, Garland Press, 1984.
- (Editor with Carol J. Clover) Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1985, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2005.
- (Editor with Lars Lonnroth and Gerd Wolfgang Weber) Structure and Meaning in Old Norse Literature: New Approaches to Textual Analysis and Literary Criticism, Odense University Press (Odense), 1986.
- (Editor with Carl Lindahl and John McNamara) Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs, ABC-CLIO (Santa Barbara, CA), 2000.
- Handbook of Norse Mythology, ABC-CLIO (Santa Barbara, CA), 2001.
Contributor to folklore and Scandinavian studies journals.