BARRACLOUGH1.mp3 HEADLINE: CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor AUTHOR NAME: Eleanor Barraclough BOOK TITLE: Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age GUEST NAME: Eleanor Barraclough 100 WORD SUMMARY: The segment introduces Eleanor Barra

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor AUTHOR NAME: Eleanor Barraclough BOOK TITLE: Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age GUEST NAME: Eleanor Barraclough 100 WORD SUMMARY: The segment introduces Eleanor Barraclough'Es book, Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age, which draws history from everyday objects. The title's source, "embers of the hands," is an Old Norse kenning for gold, repurposed here to refer to precious, personal artifacts. Barraclough shares a favorite piece of evidence: a runic message from Gyða telling her inebriated husband in a Bergen tavern around 1200 AD to "go home." The discussion then addresses the traditional starting point of the Viking Age, 750 to 1100 AD. The symbolic start is the shocking 793 AD raid on Lindisfarne (Holy Island), a very rich monastery in northeast England, which generated fear across Europe.

Transcript

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0:30.0	This is CBS, eye on the world. Here's John Batchelor.
0:42.8	This is CBS, I on the world. I'm John Batchelor. It is approximately the year 1200 AD. A man is in a tavern having a very good time, drinking heavily. And suddenly he gets a message written in ruins on a piece of wood.
0:53.6	The message is very clear. Gita says that you should go home.
0:59.9	How he responds to this is unknown, but he does write a message in return that I'm told by the
1:07.2	author Eleanor Barakoff. Doesn't make any sense.
1:13.3	However, we forgive him for being inebriated.
1:19.2	Thus, we're into the world that Eleanor takes on in her new book,
1:24.1	Embers of the Hands, Hidden Histories of the Viking Age.
1:25.0	You just heard one.
1:25.9	Who's Gita?
1:29.9	And how much trouble is he in? Eleanor, your book is wonderful. Congratulations. Your reading of your book is even more wonderful. I felt when you read
1:35.5	about Gita and her beloved, you were having an especially good time. What is that he was reading,
1:43.1	the ruin carvings, and how do you interpret them? Because
	...

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