Vikingology Podcast · The Art and Science of the Viking Age

Oh, the humanity!

·1 hr 28 min·5 clips

"Embers of the hands" comes from a Kenning about Harold Hardrada in Constantinople.

1. Vikingology Podcast's "Oh, the humanity!" focuses on Dr. Eleanor Barakloff and her work on the Viking Age and the far north. 2. CJ Adrian and Terry Barnes host the interview, and Eleanor Barakloff joins as a British historian, writer, broadcaster, and Bath Spa University teacher of environmental history. 3. The episode asks how ordinary objects, Arctic histories, and Saami-Norse contact can tell a fuller story than elite sagas alone. 4. Eleanor names Beyond the North Lands and Embers of the Hands as her two books on the frozen north and the Icelandic sagas. 5. She says Embers of the Hands comes from a Kenning about Harold Hardrada in Constantinople and "many embers of the hands" meaning gold. 6. She links the title to her aim of studying "ordinary everyday things" rather than only "the rich top dogs." 7. Eleanor and the hosts discuss a decorative object found in an Orkney grave of a woman and newborn baby, probably repurposed from a reliquary or gospel book. 8. Eleanor treats that artifact as a glimpse of a real human life rather than just a Viking raid story. 9. The conversation turns to the challenge of writing about people who survive only as fragments in archaeology. 10. Eleanor says she had to go on "quite a few walks" because some parts of the book moved from funny to not funny at all. 11. She says she wanted to bear witness to "real humans" in a small way through the material remains. 12. The hosts ask how she kept the book engaging while moving away from the usual chief, robe, bead, and glass-beaker image. 13. Eleanor says she starts from what interests her and from what would bore her if she wrote it flatly. 14. She uses textiles as an example of a topic that can show women, sheep, goats, sails, and long chains of labor. 15. She names Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders as a model for everyday drama on a historical stage. 16. Eleanor describes the book's publication during COVID, a move between cities, a first baby, and a second baby 16 months later. 17. She says publication felt like a "protracted gestation" and compared it to post-project letdown after years of work. 18. The interview style is loose, jokey, and conversational, with Friday coffee-versus-alcohol banter and repeated digressions into personal stories. 19. Listeners interested in Viking archaeology, Saami-Norse relations, and material culture will get the most from it. 20. Listeners wanting a tightly scripted or purely military Viking story may skip it.

As heard by us

Bawdy banter opens into a sharp, humane look at Norse and Sami history.

The episode opens in bawdy, self-aware banter, then settles into a serious look at how Norse and Sami histories can sit beside each other without being flattened. Dr.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you like Viking history with jokes and real context, press play.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Vikingology Podcast