Hengist- Germanic HeroHero"King of Kent"
Also known as: Hengest and Hengistus
Description
Vortigern, king of the Britons, invited the Saxon brothers Hengist and Horsa to defend his realm against the Picts. They came with three ships — and then sent word home for more. By the time the Night of the Long Knives was over, the British nobles lay dead and the kingdom of Kent belonged to Hengist.
Mythology & Lore
Vortigern's Bargain
When the Roman legions withdrew from Britain, the island's defenses crumbled. The British king Vortigern, pressed by Pictish and Scottish raids, invited Germanic mercenaries to help. In 449 CE, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Hengist and his brother Horsa arrived with three ships. They fought well against Vortigern's enemies. But the brothers quickly recognized that Britain was weakly defended and ripe for taking. They sent word to their homelands, and more settlers followed.
Later tradition added a sharper edge. Hengist's daughter Rowena captivated Vortigern so thoroughly that he gave away Kent as her bride-price, trading a kingdom for a woman, handing the invaders their foothold in exchange for a marriage bed.
The Night of the Long Knives
The most infamous episode came later. Hengist invited the British nobles to a peace conference. His men came unarmed, or so they appeared. Each Saxon carried a long knife, a seax, hidden in his boot. At a prearranged signal, they drew the blades and massacred the unarmed British aristocracy. Vortigern alone was spared.
The seax, the single-edged knife from which the Saxons took their very name, became the instrument of their conquest. With the British leadership destroyed, Hengist's position was unassailable. Horsa had already fallen fighting the Britons at Aegelesthrep in 455 CE, but Hengist and his son Æsc completed what the brothers had begun. The Kentish royal dynasty would claim descent from Hengist for centuries.