Reviewed by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer:

On April 26, 2012, The University of Toronto hosted Richard Firth Green as the keynote speaker of the 4th annual Canada Chaucer Seminar. Green gave a brilliant speech from a forthcoming book on the topic of “Elf Queens and Holy Friars,” arguing for a medieval belief in fairies across class boundaries.

Richard Firth Green was described by his introducers, Fiona Somerset (Duke) and Nicholas Watson (Harvard) as: kindly, gregarious and genial. It might easily be added by this podcaster: avuncular and a little elfin. The talk is engaging and provocative.

Listen here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

From the Ohio State University website where Firth Green is a Humanities Distinguished Professor of English and the Director for Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies:

Richard Firth Green is the author of A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England (1998), Poets and Princepleasers: Literature and the English Court in the Late Middle Ages (1980) and of numerous articles in such journals as Speculum, MediumAevum, Chaucer Review, and Studies in the Age of Chaucer. He is currently working on medieval popular culture.