Reading the Vikings. Eleanor Barraclough and Tore Skeie

The history of the Vikings is usually told from the top down, through powerful characters such as chiefs, commanders and royalty, with raids, looting and war at the centre of the narrative. But what about all the others? What was it like to live a normal life as farmer, a merchant, wife or child?

This is the central question in a recent book by British Eleanor Barraclough, Embers of the Hands. Taking her starting point from archaeological finds in order to tell the story of ordinary people’s lives in the Viking Age, she reveals how, beneath the surface, we find stories equally dramatic to the great heroic tales of those on the top.

On stage, she will be joined by her Norwegian colleague Tore Skeie. With books such as his award winning The Wolf Age: The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons, and the battle for the North Sea Empire, Skeie depicts a both vivid and brutal Viking Age rife with decisive events. Skeie’s approach to history is mainly through the upper class, such as through Saint Olaf or the nobleman Alv Erlingsson.

Skeie and Barraclough write the history of the Viking Age from two different perspectives; from the bottom up and from the top down. What can these two ways of reading history learn from each other?

The conversation was moderated by Carline Tromp, writer, critic and old norse philologist.

The event was part of the Festival of Non-Fiction 2025.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(138)

Andrey Kurkov: Ukraine — Memories for the future

The Wergeland Lecture 2026Andrey Kurkov is one of Ukraine’s most central cultural and literary ambassadors. With titles such as Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees, he has gained readers across the wo...

15 Mai 54min

Feminism in Ukrainian: Oksana Zabuzhko and Lotta Elstad

Oksana Zabuzhko is one of the central writers of Ukraine’s post-Soviet generation. In 1996, she caused great controversy with her debut novel, Field Work in Ukrainian Sex, in which she challenged the ...

4 Mai 1h 1min

The Tsar Dynasty and the Mad Monk: Anthony Beevor and Erika Fatland

Few historians can match the position of British Anthony Beevor. With his 13 historical book son recent European history, he has become one of the most respected and read writers of history. Especiall...

27 Apr 1h 6min

A Love Story: Siri Hustvedt and Marte Spurkland

After 43 years together, author Siri Hustvedt loses her husband, the author Paul Auster, to an aggressive form of cancer. Now there is only Siri left, in a time in which memories, smells and words fro...

13 Apr 1h 2min

A Country Falling Apart: Siri Hustvedt and Karin Haugen

No, reading novels is not a solution to our political miseries. For that organization, active resistance, and harder rhetoric is required. But we need stories.Author Siri Hustvedt said these words dur...

13 Apr 1h 6min

A Women's History. Annabelle Hirsch and Susanne Kaluza

In A History of Women in 101 Objects, author Annabelle Hirsch shows us how the things around us aren’t just objects, but testimonies to a common cultural history and set of values. Hirsch shows how so...

2 Mar 1h

A Secret Family History: Lea Ypi

Albanian Lea Ypi has a talent for combining the personal and the political in history, exploring how we are all shaped by the societies and ideologies surrounding us. In her memoir Free. A Child and a...

23 Feb 57min