Lindisfarne - June 8, 793

The raid on Lindisfarne monastery, marking the beginning of the Viking age, (probably) happened 1220 years ago today. Some forty years earlier, Charlemagne, in an effort to subdue the heathen Saxons (extreme northern Germany) marched 1500 citizens into the sea, drowning all, but only after having baptized them in the name of Jesus Christ. A few escaped, mostly some nobles, who fled to their homeland of Denmark. There, they shared with their fellows what had happened.

The Viking longboat - shallow draft, sturdy at sea, able to sail up rivers, - when combined with the Damascus steel of the Viking broadsword, proved a deadly combination. Quickly, the Vikings discovered what Willie Sutton espoused years later ("Why do you rob banks, Willie?" - "Um, 'cause that's where the money is.") In those days, the money was in the monasteries. Also, not without coincidence, were they the headquarters of Christendom. The Vikings hit Lindisfarne and cleaned up. When they were done, they marched the priests into the sea. And drowned them all.

"AD. 793. This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter."