29: 5. Creation, Ragnarok, and the Cautionary Tale of Post-Conversion Norse Mythology Eleanor Barraclough Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age Accessing Norse belief systems requires caution because the main textual sources, such as the Pro
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 27 October 2025
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
Eleanor Barraclough
Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
Accessing Norse belief systems requires caution because the main textual sources, such as the Prose and Poetic Eddas, were written in the thirteenth century in Iceland, after the conversion to Christianity. Snorri Sturluson, a poet and politician murdered in thirteenth-century Iceland, composed the Prose Edda as a handbook to preserve the myths. Norse creation mythology describes life beginning in Ginungagap, the eternal void where the fire world (Muspel) met the ice world (Niflheim), forming the primordial ice giant Ymir. The mythological destruction, Ragnarok (the doom of the gods), involves the fire giant Surtr and Loki arriving on Naglfar, a ship terrifyingly constructed from the fingernails of dead people.
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:05.0 | Here's John Batchelor. |
| 0:08.0 | Continuing with Eleanor Barakoff, the author of the new book, Embers of the Hands, |
| 0:13.0 | Hidden Histories of the Viking Age. |
| 0:15.0 | Importantly, Eleanor works with objects. |
| 0:18.0 | And once the object is found, sometimes in burial mound, sometimes buried, sometimes just |
| 0:25.4 | turns up in a field. |
| 0:27.1 | You then need to interpret it, and in this particular instance, 750 to 1100 AD, we're interpreting |
| 0:33.3 | the culture that we generally call the Viking Age. |
| 0:36.8 | But it's about Scandinavians who initially |
| 0:40.4 | migrate east and south into what is now Russia and Ukraine, and West, England, Ireland, |
| 0:50.5 | Iceland, Greenland, Orkney, Shetlands, all those islands in the north, |
| 0:56.0 | and then they spread down into England and conquer England. |
| 0:59.0 | All of that is a culture, and its roots are in magic. |
| 1:04.0 | And Eleanor introduces us to the way they conceived the world, which is pre-Christian. |
| 1:10.0 | Although, importantly, Eleanor, you emphasize, congratulations again, |
| 1:14.6 | you emphasize that these stories are told post-Christian conversion, |
| 1:19.6 | and therefore we need to be cautious entirely about what was feared and what the fears meant. |
| 1:28.3 | Please explain. |
| 1:32.3 | So this is one of the really interesting, occasionally frustrating, |
| 1:37.3 | but definitely interesting things about looking at sort of Viking Age belief, |
| 1:41.3 | Norse belief systems, mythology, that if you want something that is |
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