To England the Norsemen went for the first time with hostile intent in 787. During the reign of King Beorthric in Wessex a small flock of vikings landed in the neighborhood of Dorchester, killed some people, and were driven away again. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle[A] relates the incident in these words:
[A] Monum. Hist. Brit., pp. 336, 337. Quoted from Munch, i., 416.
"In this year (787) King Beorthric married Eadburg, daughter of King Offa. In those days came for the first time Northmen and ships from Heredhaland. The gerêfa (commander) rode down to them and wished to drive them to the king's dwelling. For he knew not who they were; but they slew him there. These were the first ships belonging to Danish men which visited England."
It is noticeable that the ships are said in the same breath to have belonged to Northmen and to Danes, and it is obvious that the chronicler supposes the terms to be synonymous. The Heredhaland from which the men came was in all probability Hardeland in Jutland, where the Norsemen had at that time a colony.
The next attack of which we have an account was directed against the coast of Northumberland, and took place in the year 794. The monk Simeon of Durham,[A] who lived in the beginning of the twelfth century, writes as follows:
[A] Simeon of Durham, Monum. Hist. Brit., p. 668. Quoted from Munch, i., 417.
"The heathen came from the northern countries to Britain like stinging wasps, roamed about like savage wolves, robbing, biting, killing not only horses, sheep, and cattle, but also priests, acolytes, monks, and nuns. They went to Lindisfarena church, destroying every thing in the most miserable manner, and trod the sanctuary with their profane feet, threw down the altars, robbed the treasures of the church, killed some of the brothers, carried others away in captivity, mocked many and flung them away naked, and threw some into the ocean. In 794 they harried King Ecgfridh's harbor, and plundered the monastery of Donmouth. But St. Cuthbert did not permit them to escape unpunished; for their chieftain was visited with a cruel death by the English and, a short time after, their ships were destroyed by a storm, and many of them perished; a few who swam ashore were killed without pity."
It is an odd circumstance that while an incessant stream of Norse vikings, during the first half of the ninth century, poured southward, devastating the shores of the Baltic and the Mediterranean, only a comparatively small number found their way to England. We hear in the Sagas of many individual warriors who visited the Saxon kings in England and took service under them, and of several who sailed up the Thames and put an embargo on the trade of the river, capturing every ship that ventured into their clutches. But as a field for conquest they left England (probably not from any fraternal consideration) to their kinsmen, the Danes, while they themselves turned their attention to France, Ireland, and the isles north of Scotland. In the Hebrides, the Orkneys, the Shetland Islands, and the Faeroe Isles, their descendants are still living, and Norse names are yet frequent.
RUIN OF NORSE TOWER AT MOSÖ, SHETLAND ISLANDS.