
793 First mention of Viking voyages
On a clear day, a Viking longship at sea could be seen some 18 nautical miles away. With a favourable wind, that distance could be covered in about an hour – which was perhaps all the time that the monks at Lindisfarne had to prepare themselves against attack on one fateful day in 793. This was the raid that signalled the start of the violence associated with the onset of the Viking age. “We and our fathers have now lived in this fair land for nearly 350 years, and never before has such an atrocity been seen in Britain […]