First Viking Raids 8 June

June 8 is a great day in the sagas of Vikings. For a start, on this day in 793 the first recorded Viking raid on Britain took place at Lindisfarne. This event was, by the account in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, a bit upsetting: "…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." - altogether a pretty duff year! There followed a succession of raids by Norse pirates which eventually led to the establishment of a Danish kingdom in England (the Danegeld). This was still going strong in 1042 when, on June 8 Hardeknut, (Canute the Hardy) who was a Dane died and passed the reign of England, for a while, back to a Saxon king, Edward the Confessor. Edward the Confessor was only a half brother to Hardeknut and the Norman Kings descended from Hrolf Ganger - Rollo of Normandy - had a claim to the throne also and, after some other skulduggery, this was taken up in 1066 when William the Conqueror (as the English know him) or William the Bastard (as the Vikings know him) decided to take what was his from Harold and invaded England at Hastings and accepting the surrender of the Saxon nobles at Berkhamsted. Our Glorious Queen is a direct descendant of William the Bastard, although it is doubtful if She ever wears a helm with horns, sails long ships into other peoples creeks or drinks ale from the skulls of her vanquished foe