This is John Batchelor. More conversation with Eleanor Barakloff, her new book, Embers of the Hands,

Hidden Histories of the Viking Age. A simple question to answer, why did the Norsemen of Scandinavia

go on Viking raid? Viking means to go a Viking, to raid the communities in what is now the British Isles,

to raid the communities that is now France, northern France, all along the coast.

There were terrific raiders.

Why?

Why risk it?

Go out in the open seas, the violence.

Very likely can't come back.

When you tangle with a larger force you're raiding monasteries but things

happen well there's an answer the answer is the men needed women because eleanor explains one

possibility the other possibility is they needed to get money, to be able to marry.

And money comes in the form of theft.

Anyway, it's still a debate, and so is the debate about infanticide.

Here's Eleanor Barakoff.

So it has been suggested that there was, yeah, as you say, female infanticide.

It's really tricky to prove that it was specifically female infanticide because what are you going to see that tells us that's definitely the case.

But yes, the argument is that that fits with the picture of essentially

these young males having to go off because they have to find ways of making sure they're the

ones that end up with the women when they come back. And if there aren't enough women to go

round, or maybe there are higher status men who have married more than one women, then that

increases the pressure. And that might explain what's going on.

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