England and Ireland were also badly affected by this flood. William of Malmesbury, a twelfth-century English historian and chronicler, wrote: “A tidal wave, of the sort which the Greeks call euripus, grew to an astonishing size such as the memory of man cannot parallel, so as to submerge villages many miles inland and overwhelm and drown their inhabitants. ” The damage to the North American coast was much greater than that in the Netherlands and Great Britain. A tsunami occurs where the water becomes shallower. Since the North Sea is much shallower than the Atlantic Ocean, many waves break far offshore. As a result of the flood of 1014, a lot of agricultural land became saline and was unusable for years. Entire villages disappeared. How horrific the Flood of 1014 must have been can be seen from a few lines in the chronicles of monasteries in Europe, and tiny bits of geological evidence scattered around the world. The flood also plays a leading role in stories and songs that have been passed on from generation to generation.