Kings of the Angles

The Angles were a dominant Germanic tribe in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, and gave their name to the English, England and to the region of East Anglia.

This is said to have occurred on an island named Scani or Scandza (Scania), and according to William of Malmesbury (Gesta regum Anglorum) he was later chosen as King of the Angles, reigning from Schleswig.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle derives the royal lines of the Heptarchy from a common ancestor, Woden, a euhemerized version of the Germanic deity, and said to be a descendant of the aforementioned Sceaf.

The legends give Offa as bride a daughter of Freawine, governor of Schleswig, and upon becoming king he is said to have secured the Angles' southern border with the Saxons along the River Eider.

[2] The genealogy connecting the Icling dynasty of the earliest kings of Mercia with Woden consists of at least five generations in Angeln: Some of these names have parallels in the Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus.