came to the ears of the king's reeve, who was then
in the tun which is called Dorchester, he mounted
his horse and with a few men hastened to the port,
thinking they were merchants rather than enemies,
and addressing them with authority ordered them to
be carried to the king's tun; and by them he and
those who were with him were there slain. Now
the name of this reeve was Beaduheard. ¹ Soon
there were few tun-reeves who knew not what these
strangers were, for six years later, in 793, their pirate-
boats were ravaging the coast of Northumbria,
plundering the monastery of Lindisfarne and mur-
dering its monks ² and in 794 they entered the
Wear to pillage and burn the houses of Wearmouth
and Jarrow. "He who can hear of this calamity,"
wrote Alcuin, as the news reached him in Gaul of
the ruin of the houses which enshrined within them
the religious history of Northumbria, the houses of
Aidan and Cuthberht, of Benedict Biscop and of
Bæda -- "he who can hear of this calamity and not
cry to God on behalf of his country, has a heart not
of flesh, but of stone. ³

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