THE DEATH OF RICHARD BROD IN NEW YORK on March 9, 2004, will sadden those who hear of it, and would sadden many others if they were to hear of it, including a large number of Yale undergraduate students of German, now middle-aged or somewhat beyond. Richard had a curious career. He was a master's candidate in the German Department of the University of Chicago, with a particular interest in Old Norse but apparently planning to become a schoolteacher. But in the fall of 1957 a German professor at Brown University appeared on the first day of classes in the nude. An emergency appeal went out across the country for a substitute—clothing not optional—and Richard was recommended and chosen. Those were the expansion days, and Richard sufficiently impressed his colleagues that they encouraged him to go on to a Ph.D., so in the following year he entered the graduate program at Yale, which had one of the great Old Norse experts in the world, Konstantin Reichardt. As things turned out, it was partly through Richard's advice and connections that I obtained my first position at Brown—such things were ordered differently in those days. I was very fortunate to obtain that position, thus in no small degree I owe to Richard such luck as I have had in my career.