I'm John Batchelor, and I'm exploring mysteries in a book, Embers of the Hands,

Hidden Histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barakuff.

And we go now to reliquaries.

These reliquaries were found in graves, and they're part of a collection that is associated in

Eleanor's telling with a place called Malhus, and the burial mounds give up grave treasures

that you then interpret.

One of the things that comes immediately when you find a reliquary is that this is a high status

and you presume female. What else do we read from the reliquaries, Eleanor?

So to really think about the significance of reliquaries and where they're found, we have to think

about where they came from. And this takes us back in a way to those first raids on monasteries such as Lindisfan,

because a reliquary was initially something that very much within a Christian context

would have been used to house little bits and pieces of sort of the saints or sort of other

things associated with sort of the sort of highest, holiest levels of Christian belief.

And this meant that they were beautifully decorated, you know, beautiful patterns and a lot of metal

and other decorative items, which are significant.

Because, of course, within a Christian context,

for the monks, what really mattered was inside. And how the outside was decorated was just a

reflection of the importance of what was inside. But of course, the problem comes when you get

the Norse raiders. And they're not interested in what's inside.

And in fact, annals often say, you know, the Norse attacked and they took the reliquaries and they shook the relics from the reliquaries.

You know, they don't care about that.

What they care about is the metal and the jewels and the decoration.

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