Earlier today I was reading some of Magnus Magnusson’s Scotland: Story of a Nation, which led me off on a bit of a peculiar web path. In the text, Lindisfarne Island was mentioned a few times, which is the site of the first Viking Age invasion in England. They attacked on June 8th of 793AD, sacking the abbey there.
I realized that while I was very familiar with the tale of the Viking’s attack, I wasn’t sure where exactly Lindisfarne Island was. I had it in my head that it was on the west coast of the England, but this ended up being wrong. Wikipedia informed me that it’s actually on the northeast coast of England. The article also told me that Lindisfarne is a tidal island. I wanted to get a better overall feel of the area, so I looked up the island on Google Maps, and in playing around with the zoom, I realized that one shot that was in use had caught the island during high tide; the other, during low tide. It’s actually pretty neat to see:
Lindisfarne at high tide
Lindisfarne at low tide
While you can see the differences here, it’s actually easier to see it at Google Maps, where you can zoom in and out to see the transition. Just punch in these coords at Google Maps: 55.679°N, 1.808°W (or just click here).
Tags: google maps, History, lindisfarne, maps, Reading
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May 9, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Tom
I thought it was 795….
Anyway, very cool. Isn’t there a town on that island? At high tide it looks like the town disappeared underwater. Or is that only cloud cover?
I like how you slipped in the new WP theme. Real sly like.
May 9, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Joe Anderson
I’ve never been to Lindisfarne but it’s only about an hour’s drive away. Holy Island is not covered at high tide (it has a permenant population of 160ish), just the road connecting it to the mainland is.
May 9, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Josh
Tom: I just checked 3 of my Viking books, and it’s definitely 793AD.
Regarding the WP theme - indeed, very sly of me.
I was quite tired of Tarski, and am also going to roll it out of use on my language blog soon.
Joe: Thanks for the clarification on that.
I found a video of the causeway being covered by the incoming tide, which I thought was cool to see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rrxDZoLxuc
May 21, 2008 at 8:19 am
Nils Geylen
That *is* pretty cool. I often look up stuff like this, but forget to post about it. You didn’t and that makes you the Viking king! Good post.
May 21, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Josh
Nils: I forget about a fair share of things that I plan on posting, so perhaps I could just be a Norse jarl, rather than a king. But thanks for the vote of confidence.