S8 Ep767: Eleanor Barraclough explores the real lives of the Norse people through everyday objects, focusing on private communication rather than myth. She highlights a 1200 AD runic message from a woman named Gytha ordering her husband home from a tavern. The book
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
Eleanor Barraclough explores the real lives of the Norse people through everyday objects, focusing on private communication rather than myth. She highlights a 1200 AD runic message from a woman named Gytha ordering her husband home from a tavern. The book's title, Embers of the Hands, is a poetic kenning for gold representing precious, personal stories. The 793 AD Lindisfarne raid is identified as the traditional, shocking start of the Viking Age that sent waves of terror across Europe. (1)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:08.5 | Here's John Batchelor. |
| 0:12.0 | This is CBS, I on the World. |
| 0:15.5 | I'm John Batchelor. |
| 0:17.2 | It is approximately the year 1,200 AD. |
| 0:21.3 | A man is in a tavern having a very good time, drinking heavily. |
| 0:27.1 | And suddenly he gets a message written in ruins on a piece of wood. |
| 0:33.5 | The message is very clear. |
| 0:36.5 | Gita says that you should go home. |
| 0:39.7 | How he responds to this is unknown, |
| 0:42.5 | but he does write a message in return |
| 0:44.8 | that I'm told by the author, Eleanor Barakoff, |
| 0:49.2 | doesn't make any sense. |
| 0:50.8 | However, we forgive him for being inebriated. |
| 0:54.0 | Thus, we're into the world that Eleanor takes on |
| 0:57.8 | in her new book, Embers of the Hands, Hidden Histories of the Viking Age. You just heard one. |
| 1:05.3 | Who's Gita? And how much trouble is he in? Eleanor, your book is wonderful. Congratulations. Your reading of your book is |
| 1:12.7 | even more wonderful. I felt when you read about Gita and her beloved, you were having an especially |
| 1:19.7 | good time. What is that he was reading, the ruin carvings, and how do you interpret them? because they're symbols, they're like pictures. |
| 1:30.4 | Good evening to you. |
| 1:32.0 | Good evening. |
| 1:33.1 | Thank you so much for your kind words. |
... |
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