Culture, General Things, Natural Events

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 734. This year was the moon as if covered with blood; and Archbishop Tatwine (age 64) and Bede (age 61) departed this life; and Egbert was consecrated bishop.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 744. This year Daniel resigned the see of Winchester; to which Hunferth was promoted. The stars went swiftly shooting; and Wilferth the younger, who had been thirty winters Bishop of York [Note. Probably a mistake for Worcester], died on the third day before the calends of May.

John Evelyn's Diary. 12th December 1680. This evening, looking out of my chamber window toward the west, I saw a meteor of an obscure bright color, very much in shape like the blade of a sword, the rest of the sky very serene and clear. What this may portend, God only knows; but such another phenomenon I remember to have seen in 1640, about the trial of the great Earl of Strafford, preceding our bloody Rebellion. I pray God avert his judgments! We have had of late several comets, which though I believe appear from natural causes, and of themselves operate not, yet I cannot despise them. They may be warnings from God, as they commonly are forerunners of his animadversions. After many days and nights of snow, cloudy and dark weather, the comet was very much wasted.