793

This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbirans, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whilrwinds, 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 the heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter. Siga died on the eight day before the calends of March.

(Ingram, p.55)