I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Agnes Arnórsdóttir, who will be stepping down as co-director of the Centre for Viking and Medieval Studies (hereafter CVM) at Aarhus Universitet. The Late Antique philosopher Plotinos (d. 270), following Plato, believed that everything, whether it was in our immediate grasp or not, really existed on another plane of reality, the realm of the forms. Whether or not this is true of the universe at large, I feel it is true of the CVM, which has existed at various times in the past decades as a centre, a research unit, a mailing list, or a group of scholars based inside the Aarhus ringroad all doing sterling work on medieval studies. However, it was Agnes in 2021 who went out and rescued the CVM from the misty realm of the forms and got it up and running again as an honest-to-goodness, no-doubt-about-it, Centre. Under Agnes's auspices, scholars at the CVM have put on, by my count, some 80+ events! Moreover, institutional support was repeatedly applied for and granted, and several scholars have secured funding for projects which are based at CVM. Agnes's good cheer and good sense has made working at the Centre a delight. Agnes will remain as a member of the Centre, but with time freed up from stewardship to be used on new, exciting projects. Richard Cole, previously co-director alongside Agnes, will continue as director. This is not goodbye, but rather, "god arbejdslyst!" ("happy working", as one says in Danish).

Richard Cole