Today's tale begins on a small archipelago, situated about 30 miles off the coast of

Cornwall in southwestern England.

This cluster of small islands, which feature rolling hills

ringed by rocky coastlines and sandy beaches are known as the Isles of Silly.

Today, these Isles are a popular tourist destination, but around the year 990 or so,

travelers of a rather different kind were making their own way, in a fleet of long ships no less to these rocky shores.

The men and women aboard these ships were led by a young Norwegian exile named Olaf.

Olaf and his crew had been busy for the past few years,

raiding and pillaging their way along the length and breadth of the British Isles, perfecting

a trade that they had learned while harrowing in the

Atlantic poet named Halfraeth would immortalize these events in the following stanzas

saying quote

Young the king saying, nourisher made Northumbrians perish. War glad the wolf-feeder wasted Scotland widely with the sword. On man the diminisher of metal wire made sword play.

He sent the bowstring scarrer soldiers of the isles falling.

The tear of fine swords longed for fame and Irish. Of British lands he

harried. Inhabitants, the king hueing, glutted by the greed of the eagle of the gale of spears,

cumbrians.

End quote. While Olaf and his followers were settling in on the Isles of Silly, we were told that they heard about a famous prophet who also called these Isles home.

Intrigued by these stories, Olaf sent one of his men,

an individual who we are assured was the biggest and handsomest of his followers, to visit with this

prophet and to falsely claim that he, the warrior, was Olaf.

Think of it as a simple test of the Prophet's skills.

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