71 pages • 2 hours read
Eleanor BarracloughEmbers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2025A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Love”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of antigay bias in history.
Bergen, Norway c. 1200
Barraclough imagines a scene near a waterfront where traders gather. A man is getting drunk in a tavern, and a woman named Gyda sends him a message on a short length of wood: “GYDA SAYS THAT YOU SHOULD GO HOME” (69). By 1200, most people knew how to scratch basic runes on wood, bone, or stone. These rune sticks provide traces of emotions, words, and deeds from everyday life.
Most rune sticks archaeologists have today—including the message written by Gyda—come from Bryggen, a medieval harborside in Bergen, where they were found after a fire in 1955. They include notes about drinking, fighting, and potty humor; one carries a message about changing sides in a civil conflict.
Love and Lust
Rune sticks unearthed from churches reveal secret messages. One suggests a love triangle: A man called Havard asks someone to marry him if she doesn’t want to be with Kolbein. Scratches through the runes and its hiding place between the floorboards where women sat for mass suggest the woman tried to hide the message. On another, a poem uses the sounds of runic letters to hide a secret within their meanings: The writer cannot sleep because of a woman named Gudrun.
