Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
But supposing that a man could make out such a pedigree, supposing that he could prove that he came in the male line of some follower of Hengest or Cerdic, he would be no nearer to proving original community of blood either in the particular Teutonic race or in the general Aryan family.
Yet others, once more, are true Saxon Englishmen, descendants of Hengest, if there ever was a Hengest, or of Horsa, if a genuine Horsa ever actually existed.
And the brothers brought to this land a numerous host, and here came before them these bold Britons, a numerous folk, who would it all avenge, that ere were over the woods wondrously scattered, through the mickle dread, and through the great misery, and through the mickle harm that Hengest wrought them, and who had murdered all their chief men with knives, with axes cut in pieces the good thanes!
Then befell it on a time, that the king was very blithe, on a high-day, among his people. Hengest bethought him what he might do, for he would hold secret discourse with the king; he went before the king, and gan greet fair. The king up stood, and set him by himself; they drank, they revelled bliss was among them.
Cause him to know well, that he send his writs after all the knights that are good in fight, over all Saxland, that they come to my need, and though he bring ten thousand men, all they shall be welcome to me." Hengest heard this, fairest of all knights, then was he so blithe as he was never in his life.
But Hengest and Ælle's men had touched hardly more than the coast, and the true conquest of Southern Britain was reserved for a fresh band of Saxons, a tribe known as the Gewissas, who in 495 landed under Cerdic and Cynric on the shores of the Southampton Water, and pushed to the great downs or Gwent where Winchester offered so rich a prize.
At such a time Sandwich, with its shallow fiord, was sure to afford good shelter to the northern long ships; and isolated Thanet, overlooking the navigable strait, was a predestined depôt for the northern pirates, as four centuries earlier it had been for the followers of those mythical personifications, Hengest and Horsa.
And the Britons followed after them, with many kind of crafts, and surrounded them on each side; with ships and with boats they gan to smite and shoot. Oft was Hengest woe, and never worse than then; unless he did other counsel he should there be dead.
Then spake Hengest, most treacherous of all knights: "Hearken now, my men honour to you is given here cometh Aurelie, and Uther eke, his brother; they bring very much folk, but all they are fated! And well ye may it remember, what I will say; better are fifty of us, than of them five hundred that they many times have found, since they in land sought the people.
By the usual promises of land and pay a band of warriors was drawn for this purpose from Jutland in 449 with two ealdormen, Hengest and Horsa, at their head. If by English history we mean the history of Englishmen in the land which from that time they made their own, it is with this landing of Hengest's war-band that English history begins.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking