This article explains England's first experience with the Vikings.How terrible it must have been for the poor monks to have their peaceful, God-fearing lives turned upside down before they even realized what was happening, in an agony of death and destruction.We can't help but compare it to 9/11, but on a much smaller scale.The long ships suddenly appeared as if from nowhere.The monks, cradled safely, as they thought, in the love and peace of God, stopped what they were doing and peered curiously at these strange craft.Then they saw fierce looking men disgorging from the ships, brute-men in mail byrnies and helms, with swords and axes.They didn't stop, but scaled the cliffs with a terrible purpose and made straight for the poor, peace-loving monks.Unarmed and quite unused to martial ways, they ran in panic, this way and that, trying to save the precious relics and treasures of the monastery.What chance had they? The Vikings were bent on an orgy of killing and looting.Their swords pierced the monks' flesh, while those awful war-axes parted heads from bodies and in some cases chopped through from the neck to the waist, making half-men of those who had once been God fearing human beings.Nothing was sacred to these savage men.They dug up altars, trampled on priceless relics, desecrated the tomb of St.Cuthbert, the founder of the monastery in 635.They laid rough, uncaring hands on the beautiful Lindisfarne Gospels, written in both Latin and Old English, telling the stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.Many monks were killed, while others were put in chains and led to the ships as slaves.Yet others were stripped naked and chased to the shore where many drowned, all the while suffering the crude insults of these marauders.Some lived, however, went back to the monastery, and rebuilt it.The Anglo Saxon Chronicle tells us that prior to the attack on Lindisfarne, in that same year, terrible portents were seen.Immense flashes of lightening, fiery dragons flying in the air and following these came a great famine in the land."Here Beorhtric [AD 786-802] took King Offa's daughter Eadburh.And in his days there came for the first time 3 ships; and then the reeve rode there and wanted to compel them to go to the king's town, because he did not know what they were; and they killed him.Those were the first ships of the Danish men which sought out the land of the English race." So wrote the Anglo Saxon Chronicle.In later articles, we'll see how Alfred, the only English king to be nicknamed "The Great," fought the Vikings to a standstill at the Battle of Ethandun.The country was split then, the southwestern part being held by the Saxons.The Northeastern half, including London, held by the Danes.Hence the "Danelaw.".
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