Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by thehannahwilkinson
Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age by Eleanor Barraclough
4.75
As someone who works in the city of York, Viking history is kind of hard to ignore! Long before I moved here though, if I was asked which age in history I would like to visit, The Viking Age would have been my answer, the genteel ballroom dances of the Georgian period and the oh-so-proper cover every inch of your body Victorian times just do not excite me. Give me seafaring raiders and Norse mythology any day. Obviously NOW I know I would have been a terrible Viking, I bloody hate being cold and, (if you've visited the Jorvik centre in my home city, then you know what I mean when I say) I really could not have coped with the smells!
In this book we learn of what it really meant to be a 'Viking', or more accurately, a Norse person. Not the names we know from the blood-soaked stories of invaders looting monasteries off the North coast of England or landing on American soil hundreds of years before Columbus, not even of a certain King Harald Bluetooth whose name we use probably every day albeit in a very different context, but of the everyday guys and gals of the medieval Nordic world.
It is written in a super accessible way, each chapter focussing on a certain element of daily life, from love and play, to travel and belief. The author explains through archaeological discoveries, what we can learn from the game pieces, combs and even love notes and drawings found at various sites, putting them into context and bringing these people back to life many centuries later. I know I'm a drama queen but I actually got emotional at times, if you saw me on my lunch break welling up at a stick figure drawing made by a Viking child then no, you didn't.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one (always more pictures though please!), and for anyone who has an interest in the real lives of communities from history this is a must read.
In this book we learn of what it really meant to be a 'Viking', or more accurately, a Norse person. Not the names we know from the blood-soaked stories of invaders looting monasteries off the North coast of England or landing on American soil hundreds of years before Columbus, not even of a certain King Harald Bluetooth whose name we use probably every day albeit in a very different context, but of the everyday guys and gals of the medieval Nordic world.
It is written in a super accessible way, each chapter focussing on a certain element of daily life, from love and play, to travel and belief. The author explains through archaeological discoveries, what we can learn from the game pieces, combs and even love notes and drawings found at various sites, putting them into context and bringing these people back to life many centuries later. I know I'm a drama queen but I actually got emotional at times, if you saw me on my lunch break welling up at a stick figure drawing made by a Viking child then no, you didn't.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one (always more pictures though please!), and for anyone who has an interest in the real lives of communities from history this is a must read.