This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Batchelor.

Continuing with Eleanor Barakoff, the author of the new book, Embers of the Hands,

Hidden Histories of the Viking Age.

Importantly, Eleanor works with objects.

And once the object is found, sometimes in burial mound, sometimes buried, sometimes just

turns up in a field.

You then need to interpret it, and in this particular instance, 750 to 1100 AD, we're interpreting

the culture that we generally call the Viking Age.

But it's about Scandinavians who initially

migrate east and south into what is now Russia and Ukraine, and West, England, Ireland,

Iceland, Greenland, Orkney, Shetlands, all those islands in the north,

and then they spread down into England and conquer England.

All of that is a culture, and its roots are in magic.

And Eleanor introduces us to the way they conceived the world, which is pre-Christian.

Although, importantly, Eleanor, you emphasize, congratulations again,

you emphasize that these stories are told post-Christian conversion,

and therefore we need to be cautious entirely about what was feared and what the fears meant.

Please explain.

So this is one of the really interesting, occasionally frustrating,

but definitely interesting things about looking at sort of Viking Age belief,

Norse belief systems, mythology, that if you want something that is

...