Embers of History
Slow walks through ordinary days in the past: cities, crafts, journeys and the people who lived them, and the old battles told quietly from a distance. Calm history stories for the late hours, to fall asleep to.
Episodes
Bibliotheke: Greek, from biblion, a book (after byblos, the papyrus reed), and theke, a place where things are kept. A summer around 235 BC in Alexandria, told to you, a young copyist from Rhodes: every ship searched…
Eight bells: on a sailing ship, the end of a four-hour watch, struck on the ship's bell when the last half-hour glass runs out. A night in September 1769 aboard Endeavour, a small Whitby coal ship sent around the world,…
Langeldr: Old Norse, the long fire, the hearth that ran down the middle of a longhouse. A winter night around the year 900 on the Lofoten islands, far north of the Arctic Circle, told to you, sixteen and born in the…
Compline: from the Latin completorium, the completion, the last prayer of a monastery's day. A winter night in an abbey around the year 1100, told to you, a young brother of the house: the bell that wakes the dormitory…
Halley's comet over England, a summer of waiting on the coast, the race north to Stamford Bridge, and one long October day on a ridge near Hastings, told quietly from a distance. Read by a synthetic voice. Script…
One ordinary summer day in Rome, around AD 125: the night carts, the bakers, the water, the Forum, the baths, the river, and the night watch. Read by a synthetic voice. Script written and fact-checked by the show's…
Also from the late hours: Slow Orbit · The Quiet Armoury · Myth and Score