Maybe Tolkein wasn't quite so boring

I found the Lord of the Rings novels rather boring, but at least this is somewhat amusing:

Although quiet and unassuming in public, Tolkien wasn’t the typical stodgy, reserved stereotype of an Oxford don in the classroom. He was known to begin classes by barging into the lecture hall, sometimes in era-appropriate chain mail armor, and bellowing the opening lines of Beowulf at the top of his lungs. As one of his students put it, “He could turn a lecture room into a mead hall.”

Source: Mental Floss