RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 20, 2024 CATALOG # 202408 UPC 198588767481

Lindisfarne (also known as "Holy Island") is a tidal island located off the east coast of the United Kingdom. It's known for a Christian monastery founded in the 7th century that suffered a Viking raid so terrible that some medieval writers believed that God was punishing them for their sins.

For part of the day, Lindisfarne is connected with the U.K. mainland, but when the tide comes in, Lindisfarne becomes an island. Visitors to Lindisfarne have to be careful to cross between the two land masses before the tide comes in.

Viking attack

In A.D. 793, the Vikings attacked Lindisfarne, looting the monastery, and killing or enslaving many of the monks. It was the first time the Vikings had attacked a monastic site in Britain, and the attack came as a major shock for medieval Christians.

"The pagans have desecrated God's sanctuary, shed the blood of saints around the altar, laid waste the house of our hope and trampled the bodies of the saints like dung on the street," wrote the priest Alcuin (A.D. 735-804) in a letter addressed to Higbald, who was bishop of Lindisfarne at the time the attack happened.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (a record of events) claimed that dragons were seen flying around Northumbria (the area of Britain where Lindisfarne is located) before the attack happened.

"This year came dreadful forewarnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy island, by rapine and slaughter…," the chronicle entry said.

TRACKS:

1. Mystic Shores

2. Lindisfarne

3. Shaman Prayers

4. The Vikings Have Landed

5. Viking Assault

6. Mourning The Monks

7. March To Northumbria

8. Holy Island Frost

9. The Road from Lindisfarne

10. Edmund of East Anglia9.