By CHE, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
The island of Iona has been called a ‘thin place’ between heaven and earth because of its deep Christian roots. Lying just off Mull on the western coast of Scotland it can be bleak, but on a sunny day it is stunning with its white sand and turquoise sea. Columba founded the Christian community there in AD 563, which became a beacon of hope and light to so many – even far beyond Scotland. But one day in AD 795 the monks gazed seawards and saw what they dreaded – a fleet of longboats with Vikings from Scandinavia. Lonely, exposed, and unprotected, the monks were an easy target for the ravaging pirates of the North who sought the silver and gold ornaments gifted to the church by wealthy and grateful donors.
It would not be the only time that the Vikings would spill the blood of innocent Christians on Iona. The community had barely recovered from the first onslaught, when in AD 802 the Vikings struck again. With foresight their beautiful illuminated Book of Kells was saved from the pillagers, but their tormentors would come again, and again, always looking to steal treasure. In AD 806, sixty-eight monks were slaughtered there by the shore at Martyrs’ Bay. Nineteen years later Blathmac would be torn limb from limb as he refused to leave his beloved monastery. By AD 849 the community abandoned their sanctuary, distributing their relics between Dunkeld and Kells, and would not return until the Middle Ages when the Vikings became Christianised. Indeed, when Magnus the Barelegs from Norway went on his burning and looting frenzy all the way down the western coast from Lewis to the Isle of Man, he stopped at Iona, locked the church door, and respectfully left it alone.
In 1958 the excited whooping of a schoolboy alerted the team of archaeologists on the Isle of St Ninian in the farthest Scottish north in the Shetlands. The boy, Douglas Coutts, had discovered a stone marked with a faint cross. With curiosity he lifted the slab to find a wooden box underneath containing 28 priceless silver objects of stunning Pictish intricate jewellery. The silver hoard can now be seen at the National Museum in Edinburgh, but the fact that the treasure remained hidden is a silent witness to the slaughter of all the monks on that island, sometime between AD 793 and 825.
The pagan Vikings were ruthless in their systematic devastation of Scotland and Britain, as they plundered, raped, enslaved the inhabitants, and fought their way to dominance. Twelfth-century Simeon of Durham lamented that ‘they destroyed the churches and monasteries far and wide with fire and sword, leaving nothing remaining save the bare unroofed walls; and so thoroughly did they do their work, that even our own present generation can seldom discover in those places any conclusive memorial of their ancient dignity, sometimes none.’
A new era was coming though; the light of Christ’s message began to filter through. At first the Norsemen began to realise that becoming ‘Christian’ would mean material benefits for them in Europe, and so they would mix their pagan gods like Thor with Christ and continue their rampages, but gradually genuine conversions took place and the taming of their harshness became a reality. Today we see the union of Viking, Scot, Pict, Briton, and Anglo-Saxon, in the beautiful woven artwork of our Celtic crosses.