Embers of the Hands

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

'Brilliantly written ... evokes the wonder of an entire civilisation.' Tom Holland, author of Pax and co-host of The Rest is History

It's time to meet the real Vikings.

A comb, preserved in a bog, engraved with the earliest traces of a new writing system. A pagan shrine deep beneath a lava field. A note from an angry wife to a husband too long at the tavern. Doodles on birch-bark, made by an imaginative child.

From these tiny embers, Eleanor Barraclough blows back to life the vast, rich and complex world of the Vikings. These are not just the stories of kings, raiders and saga heroes. Here are the lives of ordinary people: the merchants, children, artisans, enslaved people, seers, travellers and storytellers who shaped the medieval Nordic world.

Immerse yourself in the day-to-day lives of an extraordinary culture that spanned centuries and spread from its Scandinavian heartlands to the remote fjords of Greenland, the Arctic wastelands, the waterways and steppes of Eurasia, all the way to the Byzantine Empire and Islamic Caliphate.

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9781788166751
Published: June 2025

Number of pages: 384
Width: 128 mm
Height: 198 mm
Depth: 26 mm

Publisher: Profile Books Ltd