This is John Batchel, conversation with the author, Eleanor Barakuff. She's also a broadcaster and an historian. Her book is of the Viking Age, entitled Embers of the Hands, that's a poetic way of saying gold or silver. Embers of the Hands, hidden histories of the Viking Age. We turn here to a magical cave in Iceland

that may or may not exist. There is a cave and the archaeologists are working on it now

because it seems consistent with Viking belief that there were creatures underground.

There was another world.

Eleanor here tells the story that's in the saga of two men Christians.

This is after conversion, who come across the cave and come across a giant inside the cave,

a giant with a poem that is spooky.

Here's Eleanor Baraklove, embers of the hands, hidden histories of the Viking Age.

Highly recommended, much more of this tonight and tomorrow night.

Thank you.

Yeah, so this is the poem. It's preserved in a later saga and the story,

so kind of 13th, 14th century, and the story goes that there are two men sheltering in a cave

from a winter snowstorm. This is a terrific story. It's a terrific... Oh, it's wonderful,

yes. Yes. Yeah, I mean, seriously, the sagas are, you know, for pure storytelling magic. There's

nothing that peets the sagas. And this is sort of, you know, post-conversion. So they trace a Christian

cross with their knife and they perch close to the the entrance. I can just imagine, you know,

how you'd feel in the middle of this snowstorm. And then the story goes that they see two

glowing eyes, the size of full moons that appear at the back of the cave. And this is, so the story

goes, a mountain giants, you know, of the sort that maybe is under the ground in Sertz Hetler.

And the mountain giant starts to say a poem.

And it's full of fire and volcanic imagery and mythology.

And it's, you know, there's, you know, part of it says dark flames drive the spit, split the mountain ridge, embers shoot rushing upward, the roaring of the spark storm. You know, it's just pure volcanic imagery. But there are 12 verses, I think, to this poem. And as it goes on, it's the end of this world. It's the end of possibly, not the end of sort of the world in a physical sense, but the end of a way of life. And in this case, the end of a pagan way of life, possibly. Or maybe it is describing Ragnarok.

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