Bringing Light to the Viking World: Embers of the Hands by Eleanor Barraclough

Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barraclough is a fascinating look into the world of the Vikings. 

Embers of the Hands

Rather than a top-down view of great kings and heroes, Barraclough explores different aspects of Viking life across time from the Roman period through to the end of the Greenland settlements in the 15th century, and across the span of the “Viking World” from the tentative settlement of Newfoundland to traders travelling to the Middle East. She focuses especially on what we can learn from archaeological and material evidence combined with our written sources and stories from Viking myth and legend. 

The book follows thematic chapters from the beginnings of the Viking Age, through how people lived and loved, travelled, what they believed, how they looked and groomed, their homes, how they played, and the hidden stories of slavery and servitude. 

Through this all, she builds a much fuller and richer picture of Vikings than the stereotypes of raiders and warriors – a picture of complex and varied societies and an illustration of how much we can learn and understand about historical cultures if we look more closely than our traditional sources. From carvings and toys to clothes and jewelry, to runic writing that gives an insight into people’s everyday lives (a drunken note to self that Gyda really thinks the author should go home from the pub on a stick, or a child’s bored doodling during his school lessons were especially fun). Barraclough works hard to make visible through the material and written evidence the stories of those often lost or forgotten - ‘normal’ people, the experiences of women, of childbirth and children, and the unfree. 

“It’s through these little fragments of lives lived, the bits and pieces that fell between the cracks in the floorboards, that we are able to reach out through space and time to the humans of the past.” 

This book is an amazing achievement – bringing to life the everyday experiences and existences of a world typified by warriors and heroes and bringing colour to the tapestry of the Viking world and Viking lives. 

Embers of the Hands was longlisted for the UK's prestigious Women's Prize for Non-fiction.

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Try some other great reads about the Vikings.

• Beyond the Northlands - Eleanor Barraclough
• River Kings: A New History of Vikings From Scandinavia to the Silk Roads - Cat Jarman
• Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings - Neil S. Price
• Viking Women: Life and Lore - Lisa L. Hannett
• 24 Hours in the Viking World: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There - Kirsten Wolf
• Saga Land - Richard Fidler

Check out other great history reads in our Non-Fiction - Historical Tales reading list