Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. The author compares Norse Greenlandic settlement to colonizing the moon. How do you think it must have felt for those settlers arriving in that marginal environment? Have you ever had a similar experience?

2. Discuss how the book’s depiction of family life, gender roles, and personal habits relates to your own experiences. Who might you have been if you lived within the sphere of Viking influence?

3. Much of the evidence in the book comes from the messages on runic inscriptions and the materials people were buried with. If someone centuries into the future were to find artifacts from your life, what might they be? What would they reveal about you and your life?

4. What does the book show about how Norse culture diffused, adapted, and assimilated with various other cultures? To what extent do you believe all peoples are influenced by cultural exchange, and how is this present in your life or the place where you live?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. The author frequently reminds readers to avoid imposing modern values or beliefs when interpreting the artifacts of the Viking Age. What societal issues from the book still feel relevant today? What mirrors of Viking Age life and culture do you see in the modern world?

2. Viking Age myths and legends have endured in pop culture representations and have been reimagined by writers, such as The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan or Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. Why do you think the individuals and ideas in these stories continue to capture people’s imagination after a thousand years? If you’re familiar with these modern adaptations, do you agree with Barraclough’s assertion that popular culture has turned them into one-dimensional stereotypes?

3. In Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, Alfred W. Crosby calls the exploration and settlement practices of the Vikings “proto-colonialism,” as they were the precursors to European imperialists during the Age of Exploration and beyond. In what ways do you think the Vikings represent an early form of colonialism as we know it, and what differences exist?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. Analyze the book’s narrative style and informal tone. How does Barraclough’s writing compare to other nonfiction books you have read, especially others on this time period, such as Life in a Medieval City?

2. Discuss how the book organizes information thematically, moving backward and forward in time. What is the impact of exploring the content in this way, as opposed to describing events chronologically?

3. Examine Barraclough’s use of symbols and vignettes to develop the thematic arc when beginning each chapter. For example, what is the impact of using the footprint etched into the Gokstad ship as a symbol of Viking movement to introduce the chapter “Travel,” and why does she return to it at the end of the chapter? Where else does she use a similar technique, and to what effect?

4. Embers of the Hands often block-quotes full passages from its historical sources to support inferences, comparing individual perspectives, literary narratives, and legal documents with each other and with archaeological evidence. What is the purpose of this approach?