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This national chronicle, or annual record of events, was originally compiled around 890 during the reign of King Alfred the Great. It was the first attempt to give a systematic year-by-year account of English history, and it was later maintained, and added to, by generations of anonymous scribes until the middle of the 1100s. This version is an 11th-century copy, probably made in Worcester.
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The entry on the left for 793 (dccxciii) tells us about the first Viking raid on Lindisfarne, Northumberland, and the omens that preceded it: ‘Here were dreadful forewarnings come over the land of Northumbria, and woefully terrified the people: these were amazing sheets of lightning and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky.’ The Danish and Norwegian Vikings that eventually settled in parts of the north and east introduced many Scandinavian words from their Old Norse language into English, for example the words they, take, dirt, and place names containing thorpe.
Third paragraph from original text:
Ann. dccxciii. Her pæron reðe forebecna cumene ofer norðhymbra land . 7þæt folc earmlic bre?don þætpæron ormete þodenas 7li?rescas . 7 fyrenne dracan ?æron ?ese?ene on þam lifte fleo?ende . þam tacnum sona fyli?de mycel hun?er . 7 litel æfter þam þæs ilcan ?eares . on . vi . id. ianr . earmlice hæthenra manna her?unc adile?ode ?odes cyrican in Lindisfarna ee . þurh hreaflac 7 mansliht . 7 Sic?a forthferde . on . viii . kl. martius.
In present day English:
Here were dreadful forewarnings come over the land of Northumbria, and woefully terrified the people: these were amazing sheets of lightning and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. A great famine soon followed these signs, and shortly after in the same year, on the sixth day before the ides of January, the woeful inroads of heathen men destroyed god’s church in Lindisfarne island by fierce robbery and slaughter. And Sicga died on the eighth day before the calends of March.