Northumbria, England: Fiery Dragons, Evil Men — 793

According to the Anglo Saxon chronicle, “Here in this year, dire portents appeared over

Northumbria, and sorely terrified the people. They consisted of immense whirlwinds and flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine immediately followed those signs, and a little after that in the same year, on 8 June, the ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God’s church on the island of Lindisfarne, with plunder and manslaughter.” These descriptions are consistent with electrical storms, possibly associated with tornadoes.

Source: G. P. Cubbin, ed., The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, A Collaborative Edition, vol. 6 (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1996), 17. Case: W485