*Ø* Blogmanac | June 8 | Lindisfarne Day: Vikings and vanquished

When I was with you, the closeness of your love would give me great joy. In contrast, now that I am away from you, the distress of your suffering fills me daily with deep grief, when heathens desecrated God's sanctuaries, and poured the blood of saints within the compass of the altar, destroyed the house of our hope, trampled the bodies of saints in God's temple like animal dung in the street …
Letter from Alcuin (Flaccus Alcuinus), Anglo-Saxon theologian and a founder of Western calligraphy, to Higbald, Bishop of Lindisfarne

June 8 is celebrated by Odinists (worshippers of Odin, Norse god). Odin is the supreme deity of the old religion of Norway, eldest of all the gods in the Nordic pantheon and leader of the race of gods known as the Aesir, they who live in Asgard. Odin is called All-father for he is father of all the gods.

It is the day in 793 that Vikings raided Lindisfarne, the holy island off the coast of Northumberland. The Vikings hacked the monks to death or dragged them into the sea where they drowned them. The chapels and monastery were looted of the riches they contained, much of which had been derived from the payment by the common folk for their indulgences – monetary payments to safeguard them from the torments of hell. The treasure included gold, silver, jewellery, ivory coffins and much beside.

It was not the first violent encounter between Vikings and the people of the British Isles – in 789 the crews of three Viking vessels landed at the present site of Portland, near Weymouth, England. There they were approached by a party of men led by Beaduheard, the shire reeve (from which title we derive the word ‘sheriff’) of the King of Wessex, who demanded that they accompany him to Dorchester, some nine miles away; an altercation ensued and the visitors slew Councillor Beaduheard.

Vikings at Portland: invasion, or stopping in for a beer?
In Britain, naturally enough, this incident is generally portrayed as the first Viking raid – a friendly councillor rushing to the quay to welcome what he thought was a Nordic package tour, and getting slewn … err … slain … for his troubles by a pack of horn-helmeted barbarians. However, it might well have been simply a case of Scandinavian sailors coming to port for purely honourable commercial purposes, being met by a pompous and xenophobic bureaucrat who handled the situation badly, from which a fight followed and things got out of hand [see Eelia’s Page, Chapter One). It might perhaps be thought of as a dockside brawl rather than an invasion from the north, whereas the Lindisfarne expedition some four years later was a raid, albeit more criminal than military.

Be that as it may, no fewer than four medieval scribes saw the 789 Portland incident as sufficiently significant to record it in their chronicles. Interestingly, one source, the important Anglo-Saxon chronicle, in recording the affair of 789, reveals the Britishers’ uncertainty about whence the raiders came, calling them both Norwegians and Danes:

In this year Beorhtric took to wife Eadburh, daughter of king Offa. And in his days came first three ships of Norwegians from Höthaland and then the reeve rode thither and tride [sic] to compel them to go to the royal manor, for he did not know what they were: and then they slew him. These were the first ships of the Danes to come to England.

Who knows, maybe in death Beaduheard gained immortality, all for being a jumped-up clerk with a tin badge and a somewhat capacious mouth.

If it rains today ...
Today, by the way, is also an English weather marker day with an ancient prognostication:

If on the eighth of June it rain,
It foretells a wet harvest, men sain.

A similar formula existed in old France today, the Feast Day of St Médard:

Quand il pleut a la Saint-Médard
Il pleut quarante jours plus tard;
S'il pleut le jour de Saint Gervais et de Saint Protais [June 19],
Il pleut quarante jours aprés.

It is quite likely the English invented their jingle following the French. The British tradition concerning forecasts of rain is much more commonly centred around St Swithin’s Day, July 15.

If today’s prognostication fails to help you decide whether to carry an umbrella, the laughing call of the European Green Woodpecker (Picus, or Genius, viridis) – alias the yaffle bird – is a sure sign of a shower. This is a bird of many names, for it is also known, just in English, as: eccle, hewhole, highhoe, laughing bird, popinjay, rain bird, yaffil, yaffler, yaffingale, yappingale, yackel, and woodhack.


For lovers of illuminated manuscripts: Painted Labyrinth - the World of the Lindisfarne Gospels


Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details



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Culture corner
See what are the first three results you get if you google the following three search words: Vikings, Portland, and 789.
;)