29: 8. Greenland's Final Days: The Mystery of Herjolfsnes and the Fifteenth-Century End Eleanor Barraclough Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age The final chapter focuses on the end of Norse settlement in Greenland, begun by Eric the Red ar

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🗓️ 27 October 2025

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Summary

8. Greenland's Final Days: The Mystery of Herjolfsnes and the Fifteenth-Century End

Eleanor Barraclough

Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age

The final chapter focuses on the end of Norse settlement in Greenland, begun by Eric the Red around 985 AD. Herjolfsnes, one of the last settlements, preserved the clothes and bodies of the final generations in its graveyard, dating into the early fifteenth century. The garments were patched, coarse woolen pieces reflecting the declining status and isolation caused partly by climate change. One woman's dress tore when she was buried—a poignant detail. The Norse interacted with the Inuit, who may have carved figures depicting Norse dress. The final reports include a man burned for seducing a married woman through witchcraft in 1407 and a wedding in 1408. The ultimate fate of the last few inhabitants remains an unsolved mystery.
1949

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm John Bathurst, visiting with Professor Eleanor Barakoff,
0:05.0	embers of the hands, hidden histories of the Viking Age.
0:08.0	The Viking Age closed over time or didn't close because it's still with us.
0:13.0	Everybody who knows Lord of the Rings well knows the Viking world.
0:17.0	We're talking about a language and a time that's magical.
0:21.6	However, there's also what I find in Eleanor's closing remarks, a sadness to it, because the world ended.
0:30.6	And when did it end?
0:31.6	It's the story we're now approaching.
0:35.6	Eleanor, where is Harleof Ness?
0:39.2	So Herriov's Ness is right at the southern tip of Greenland.
0:44.9	And Greenland, for me, is one of the most fascinating parts of Norse Viking Age history.
0:52.6	It's the bit that I think I love the most.
0:55.6	I've spent a lot of time researching out there.
0:57.9	It's very wild.
0:58.9	It's very remote still.
1:00.6	But it also means there's a lot still to see.
1:03.6	You know, there's whole churches still standing.
1:06.6	There's farmsteads.
1:07.7	You know, you can really get a sense of what it was like.
1:10.7	Herios-Ness was one of the first places to be settled.
1:15.0	So the Norse essentially start to settle parts of the west coast of Greenland under Eric the Red,
1:22.3	who's sort of outlawed from Iceland for killings and ends up spending three years of his outlawy in Greenland,
	...

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