Launch: ‘Embers of the Hands’ by Dr Eleanor Barraclough

We are delighted to welcome historian and broadcaster Dr Eleanor Barraclough for the launch of the paperback edition of Embers of the Hands - Hidden Histories of the Viking Age. The launch is part of the 2026 Viking Society for Northern Research student conference, but will be open to the general public.

The launch will be preceeded by Tea and Coffees served from 3:45 pm in the foyer of the Rendall Building.

Dr Eleanor Barraclough is a historian and broadcaster, and the author of Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas. Based at Bath Spa University, she previously held academic positions at Oxford and Durham, and studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Cambridge. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a BBC New Generation Thinker. She lives in London.

Embers of the Hands - Hidden Histories of the Viking Age

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.

For more detailed directions to the Rendall Building and information on parking on the University of Liverpool campus, please see. The Rendall is building number 432 in square D3 on the downloadable campus map ().

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher The Institute of Irish Studies