ALL HAIL JARL RAGNAR!
For all you VIKINGS fans ( not the football team) and Viking Wannabe's, today is LINDISFARNE DAY.
The generally accepted date for the Viking raid on Lindisfarne is June 8 when better sailing weather would favor coastal raids. Maybe thats made up, what do Vikings care about weather and waves? The people of Lindisfarne today celebrate Lindisfarne Day on the 8th, not in January .
"AD. 793. This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: there were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. There were tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter."Entry for the year 793 in the Anglo Saxon chronicle
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| LINDISFARNE... Next Year |
Lindisfarne is often talked of as the first Viking raid on Britain, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the most important English sources for this period ( and a sort of fun read but not in Olde Englishe)
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/657
tells that four years earlier, a group of Norsemen landed in Southern England. The king’s official rode out to greet them, assuming they were merchants coming to trade with the king. Instead they killed him.
The explanation for the raid seemed to be, simply, that the Northumbrians brought it upon themselves. One of the champions of this particular point of view was the scholar Alcuin.
The logic behind this thinking was that for something this bad to happen to the holiest site in eighth century Britain, then the local community had to have done something very bad themselves in order to evoke the wrath of God. The Anglo Saxon chronicle’s entries for the years preceding 793 a catalogues a series of very un-Christian-like behavior. One could be forgiven for thinking that they had strayed into the pages of Richard III or maybe Macbeth; usurpers, murders and political assassination were the order of the day, even hairstyles and fashion sense had become reckless and unholy apparently.
By 793 enough was enough. Certainly for Alcuina, a monk from York, (who was a bit of a square after all) what happened next should not have been such a terrible surprise. In 793 it seemed that discipline meted out by God had a new face, it spoke a new language and favored a new form of transport and all of this scared the living daylights out of the Anglo Saxons.
These Viking raiders fitted the bill very well for anyone in the eighth century casting around for a hellish and bloody band of people - reportedly bringing the punishment of God down on the heads of wayward Christians.
These Viking raiders fitted the bill very well for anyone in the eighth century casting around for a hellish and bloody band of people - reportedly bringing the punishment of God down on the heads of wayward Christians.
BUT.... in defense of the Northmen.......Not a single raider would have been seen that day to have been sporting a lovely pair of horns on either side of their helmet; neither would these raiders have been hell-bent on destroying absolutely everything and anybody that they could find; and there was certainly neither time nor inclination for scribbling down the phrase "A furore Normanorum, libera nos Domine" (From the fury of the north-men, God deliver us.)
First of all horns on one’s helmet are completely and utterly useless in combat. They offer no protection and any impact upon them would jar the helmeted head severely and the best that they could expect from this would be cricked neck. Add to this the matter of the rigging and the large square sail of a ship filled with warriors and perhaps slaves and you will almost certainly become entangled in something or poke someone’s eye out! All false hype!
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| Poor Monks, All Those Beautiful Manuscripts |
There is no denying the raiders inflicted terrible slaughter and injury on many people and that there were many deaths on Lindisfarne that day. It would be inaccurate to suggest that these raiders lacked any purpose other than complete devastation of Lindisfarne and all those within the community. But it was a much more organised affair rather than a lucky crazed strike. Having gathered what information they could about Lindisfarne they pre-planned a more articulate attack. It is also possible then that they knew of Lindisfarne’s wealth, the size of the community there and the nature of that community - monasteries were popular targets as they were seldom well defended by their location or by other means and they often possessed items of great value usually as part of their religious ceremony.
'Lo, it is nearly 350 years that we and our fathers have inhabited this most lovely land, and never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made. Behold the church of St Cuthbert spattered with the blood of the priests of God, despoiled of all its ornaments; a place more venerable than all in Britain is given as a prey to pagan peoples...'.
Letter from Alcuin to Ethelred, king of Northumbria
The coming of the Vikings and the raid on Lindisfarne was the beginning of a new world and the foundation steps of forming the England we know today.
There probably was not a Ragnar Lothbrok to lead the raid, I've read nothing that affirms who was the leader since no one wrote about it, so if anyone knows let me know. But its fun to think about and Travis Fimmel is a nice imagery to go with that, isnt he?
June 8 AD 793 is well worth remembering then. It was a bad day for Lindisfarne and Northumbria but it was good day to be a Viking raider.
SWITCHING GEARS and BACK TO ENGLAND
And with that great story I say goodbye to George at Heathrow and hello to my walking partner Linda.
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| Never Even Looked Back |
Celeb sightings..... Linda saw Alice Cooper on her flight, I saw John Hannah while waiting for her to come through the Customs doors.
Our hotel, the Four Seasons, is located in Dogmersfield Park, Hampshire. This area was first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Doccemere feld, “the field by the lake where the water lilies grow.” And its still there.
Dogmersfield Park was made in the reign of Henry II, when licence was given to Reginald Fitz Jocelin, Bishop of Bath and Wells. In 1205, the king ordered wine to be sent to Dogmersfield, “to be placed in the house of the Bishop of Bath.” From that point on, this medieval palace passed between crown and church for many centuries.
Dogmersfield provided the backdrop for Henry VIII’s initial meeting with the first of his six wives, Katherine of Aragon, just weeks before her arranged marriage to his brother, Arthur, then heir to the throne. I am on hallowed ground!
The manor was granted to Thomas, Lord Wriothesley, first Earl of Southampton, in 1547, by Edward VI. If you read Hilary Mantell's book ( "Wolf Hall") or saw the Masterpiece series, this is none other than "Call me" Risley's house. In 1524, he entered the service of Thomas Cromwell and later, after poor Tom's falling out, he was appointed joint clerk of the signet - a fancy title for writing letters and putting a seal on them - under Stephen Gardiner, secretary to H8.
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| "Call Me" Wriothesley my room, bathroom, the hotel |
However, we have a PLAN! We will escape when they arent looking.
But look what I get! I'm a Faucet Snob!
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| Amen |
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