On this day – June 8th

The Vikings are coming!

Ann. dccxciii. Her pæron reðe forebecna cumene ofer norðhymbra land . 7þæt folc earmlic bre?don þætpæron ormete þodenas 7li?rescas . 7 fyrenne dracan ?æron ?ese?ene on þam lifte fleo?ende . þam tacnum sona fyli?de mycel hun?er . 7 litel æfter þam þæs ilcan ?eares . on . vi . id. ianr . earmlice hæthenra manna her?unc adile?ode ?odes cyrican in Lindisfarna ee . þurh hreaflac 7 mansliht .

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle for the year 793 records
"Here were dreadful forewarnings come over the land of Northumbria, and woefully terrified the people: these were amazing sheets of lightning and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. A great famine soon followed these signs, and shortly after in the same year, on the sixth day before the ides of June, the woeful inroads of heathen men destroyed god's church in Lindisfarne island by fierce robbery and slaughter."

This was the first raid on mainland England by the Vikings, on the monastery at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, the precursor of many more raids, invasion, political takeover and eventually successful invasion by William of Normandy (essentially just a jumped-up Frenchified Viking: "Norman" = Northman, or Viking).

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