Matthew Eagles was born in Clitheroe, Lancashire, in 1975, but currently lives in Blairgowrie, Scotland. He has many and varied interests: although he is keen on writing, he has kept weather observations from various sites since 1987, and is widely recognised as an expert on the low-pressure sodium (SOX) streetlight, having written a book on this subject also. Matthew's interest in Old English began in 2013, and is part of a wider interest in languages that in particular includes Russian and Welsh. Accordingly, his own bookshelf contains dictionaries and textbooks on these along with several other languages including Latin, Danish and Cornish, and he wrote his two-way dictionary of Old English in order to fill a gap in the market. Compiled from his accumulated notes over the years, it is the work of the keen amateur rather than the professional academic, but with Matthew's perfectionist approach to attention to detail. The first edition has sold around 1000 copies and has won favourable reviews on Amazon. On a professional level, Matthew works as an analyst at the University of Edinburgh.