Interview with Professor Tom Birkett on "Runes: A Concise History"

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Runic writing carries connotations of magic and fantasy, but it was a widespread, useful, and long-lasting system of writing. Professor Tom Birkett has written a fantastic overview of runic writing that returns it to the real time and place in which it existed - Runes: A Concise History.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad-free right now.
0:04.6	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:12.3	Hi, everybody.
0:17.2	From Wondery, welcome to another episode of Tides of History.
0:20.5	I'm Patrick Wyman.
0:21.4	Thanks so much for joining me today.
0:23.7	If you have an image in your head of Vikings and early medieval Europe more generally, there is a good chance that runes play into your picture.
0:32.4	This distinctive writing associated with speakers of Germanic languages across the North Sea, Baltic, and
0:37.6	even far beyond, is immediately distinctive. Sharp lines, often incised in stone or metal,
0:44.3	bearing witness to a whole world of literacy, belief, and interaction that we could otherwise
0:49.1	barely glimpse. Today's guest is one of the world's leading experts on runes and related topics.
0:56.3	Dr. Tom Burkett is Professor of Old Norse and Old English at University College Cork.
1:01.3	Professor Berkett is running the Norse Map Project, which is funded by a European Research
1:05.5	Council grant, and I cannot wait to ask him about that.
1:08.1	He's also the author of numerous scholarly articles in several books,
1:11.3	including The Vikings Reimagined and The Norse Myths. He also has a brand new book out now
1:17.3	from Oxford University Press entitled Rooms, a concise history, which is actually one of my
1:22.3	favorite things I've read this year, and I highly recommend it to you all. Professor Burkett,
1:26.4	thank you so much for joining me today.
1:28.3	Thank you for having me on, and thanks for the kind words about the book.
1:31.3	So I actually just received my copy today, so I'm really happy to all my copies, I should say.
1:37.3	So it's perfect timing for this podcast.
	...

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