Portland, southern Wessex, the year 789.

A sail is spotted upon the horizon.

It actually means little a sail is spotted upon the horizon.

It actually means little to the local population. Some no doubt making a living from fishing and other seaborn pursuits, others from the fertile

land further from the shore. After a while, the crew of the vessel make landfall unopposed.

Apparently they, or people very much like them, had travelled to the West Saxon port

innumerable times before, either to sell their wares or barter for a small slice of the wealth

of Wessex.

Currently under the hegemony of the great king, Offer of Mercia.

Yet still a powerful and wealthy state in its own right,

long profiting from the lucrative continent-spanning trade network of the Franks and their northern clients in Frisia.

Those newcomers, however, had come from lands further to the north, outside of the traditional

trade network of the last century and more. Though their tongue was unmistakably foreign,

curiously, with a little effort it could be understood by the locals,

hinting at a common heritage in the Germanic pass

of the migration period a few centuries before.

Nevertheless, almost immediately, it became apparent that these men, at least at the present moment, were no traders.

Perhaps the serpent-headed prow of their vessel gave them away. Perhaps it was the weapons they carried, and male adorning their bodies.

These men came not as traders, but as pirates.

What happened next isn't exactly clear, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, being tantalizingly tight lips as usual.

Though, by day's end, the local Shireve, who had come down to the shore, either to discuss terms with the pirates or barter with them, lay dead on the beach, sliced down

where he stood. The pirates, meanwhile, embarked on a vicious rampage around Portland,

...