789 (787) In this year King Brihtric married Offa's daughter Eadburh. And in his days there came for the first time three ships of Northmen and then the reeve rode to them and wished to force them to the king's residence, for he did not know what they were; and they slew him (1). Those were the first ships of Danish men which came to the land of the English.
793 In this year dire portents
appeared over Northumbria and sorely frightened the people. They consisted
of immense whirlwinds and flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were
seen flying in the air. A great famine immediately followed those signs,
and a little after that in the same year, on 8 June, the ravages of heathen
men miserably destroyed God's church on Lindisfarne, with plunder and slaughter.
And Sicga died on 22 February.
Note:
1. 'A' omits 'of Northmen'
but it was in the archetype, for it is also in the Annals of St Neots,
which gives the additional information that they landed in Portland. 'D',
'E', and 'F' add: 'from Hörthaland' (in Norway).
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. D. Whitelock, Eyre and Spottiswoode, London 1961, p. 35-36.
11.08.1999 Tilrettelagt av Frode Ulvund