29: 1. Everyday Objects and the Shocking Start of the Viking Age Eleanor Barraclough Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age The book uses everyday objects to explore the real lives of the people known as Vikings. For example, a runic message
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 27 October 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
Eleanor Barraclough
Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
The book uses everyday objects to explore the real lives of the people known as Vikings. For example, a runic message carved on wood from Norway around 1200 AD shows a woman named Gia telling her inebriated husband, who is in a tavern, to come home. Runes were spiky letters often carved into hard surfaces like wood or bone, possibly originating during the Roman Empire. The book's title is a kenning, an Old Norse poetic device in which "Embers of the Hands" originally meant gold but here refers to precious, personal objects. The Viking Age is generally dated from 750 to 1100 AD, with a defining start marked by the shocking raid on the wealthy monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 AD.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:08.5 | Here's John Batchelor. |
| 0:12.0 | This is CBS, I on the World. |
| 0:15.5 | I'm John Batchelor. |
| 0:17.2 | It is approximately the year 1,200 AD. |
| 0:21.3 | A man is in a tavern having a very good time, drinking heavily. |
| 0:27.1 | And suddenly he gets a message written in ruins on a piece of wood. |
| 0:33.5 | The message is very clear. |
| 0:36.5 | Gita says that you should go home. |
| 0:39.7 | How he responds to this is unknown, |
| 0:42.5 | but he does write a message in return |
| 0:44.8 | that I'm told by the author, Eleanor Barakoff, |
| 0:49.2 | doesn't make any sense. |
| 0:50.8 | However, we forgive him for being inebriated. |
| 0:54.0 | Thus, we're into the world that Eleanor takes on |
| 0:57.8 | in her new book, Embers of the Hands, Hidden Histories of the Viking Age. You just heard one. |
| 1:05.3 | Who's Gita? And how much trouble is he in? Eleanor, your book is wonderful. Congratulations. Your reading of your book is |
| 1:12.7 | even more wonderful. I felt when you read about Gita and her beloved, you were having an especially |
| 1:19.7 | good time. What is that he was reading, the ruin carvings, and how do you interpret them? because they're symbols, they're like pictures. |
| 1:30.4 | Good evening to you. |
| 1:32.0 | Good evening. |
| 1:33.1 | Thank you so much for your kind words. |
... |
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