Embers of the HandsBrilliantly 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