Wiltshire hills still bear witness to their settlement. A white horse is
even now the symbol of Kent. Hence it is not surprising to learn that in
the legendary story of the first colonisation, the Jutish leaders who
led the earliest Teutonic host into Thanet should bear the names of
Hengest and Horsa, the stallion and the mare. They came in three
keels–a ridiculously inadequate number, considering their size and the
necessities of a conquering army: and they settled in 449 (for the
legends are always most precise where they are least historical) in the
Isle of Thanet. "A multitude of whelps," says the Welsh monk Gildas,
"came forth from the lair of the barbaric lioness, in three cyuls, as
they call them." Vortigern, King of the Welsh, had invited them to come
to his aid against the Picts of North Britain and the Scots of Ireland,
who were making piratical incursions into the deserted province, left
unprotected through the heavy levies made by the departing Romans. The
Jutes attacked and conquered the Gaels, but then turned against their
Welsh allies.

In 455, the Jutes advanced from Thanet to conquer the whole of Kent,
"and Hengest and Horsa fought with Vortigern the king," says the English
Chronicle, "at the place that is cleped Æglesthrep; and there men slew
Horsa his brother, and after that Hengest came to rule, and Æsc his
son." One year later, Hengest and Æsc fought once more with the Welsh at
Crayford, "and offslew 4,000 men; and the Britons then forsook
Kent-land, and fled with mickle awe to London-bury." In this account we
may see a dim recollection of the settlement of the two petty Jutish
kingdoms in Kent, with their respective capitals at Canterbury and
Rochester, whose separate dioceses still point back to the two original
principalities. It may be worth while to note, too, that the name Æsc
means the ash-tree; and that this tree was as sacred among plants as the
horse was among animals.