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Hengist and Horsa

The Jutish warrior brothers Hengist and Horsa, leaders of ‘The Men of Kent’.

Hengist and Horsa were recognised by the early English study group Engliscan Gesithasas as the first leaders of the English during the migration period, or Adventus Saxonum, from Upper Germany and Denmark.

The impact of these early English arriving in numbers and the war chiefs such as the Saxon Ælle was that the Romano-Brythonic inhabitants of the Isles, the Welsh, began to flee ”from the English like fire”.

According to the historian Bede, Hengist and Horsa were the sons of Wictgils, son of Witta, son of Wecta, son of Woden.

The King Vortigern asked for help fighting against the invading Picts. He invited the warriors Hengist and Horsa to Britain in AD449. He paid them and their men to fight the Picts.

In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles entry for the year 455 the Chronicle details that Hengist and Horsa turned on the Welsh leader Vortigern at Aylesford (Kent) and that Horsa died there.

Hengist took control of Kent with his son Esc.

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