he was the founder of the Geatas; through Gewis, of the Gewissas;
through Scyld, of the Scyldingas, the Norse Skjoldungar; through Brand,
of the Brodingas; perhaps, through Baetwa, of the Batavians."[197] It
could therefore scarcely be regarded as very exceptional at least, if
Vetta, one of the grandsons of Woden, should have given, in the same
way, his name to a combined tribe of Saxons and Picts, over whom he had
been elected as leader.[198]

That a Saxon force, like that mentioned by Ammianus as being joined to
the Picts and Scots in A.D. 364, was led by an ancestor of Hengist and
Horsa is quite in accordance with all that is known of Saxon laws and
customs. As in some other nations, the leaders and kings were generally,
if not always, selected from their royal stock. "Descent" (observes Mr.
Kemble) "from Heracles was to the Spartans what descent from Woden was
to the Saxons--_the_ condition of royalty."[199] All the various
Anglo-Saxon royal families that, during the time of the so-called
Heptarchy, reigned in different parts of England certainly claimed this
descent from Woden. Hengist and Horsa probably led the band of their
countrymen who invaded Kent, as members of this royal lineage; and a
royal pre-relative or ancestor would have a similar claim and chance of
acting as chief of that Saxon force which joined the Picts and Scots in
the preceding century.

If we thus allow, for the sake of argument, that Vetta, the son of
Victus, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, is identical with Vetta
the son of Victus commemorated in the Cat-stane inscription, and that he
was the leader of those Saxons mentioned by Ammianus that were allied
with the Picts in A.D. 364, we shall find nothing incompatible in that
conjecture with the era of the descent upon Kent of Hengist and Horsa.
Bede, confusing apparently the arrival of Hengist and Horsa with the
date of the second instead of the first visit of St. Germanus to
Britain, has placed at too late a date the era of their first appearance
in Kent, when he fixes it in the year 449. The facts mentioned in the
earlier editions or copies of Nennius have led our very learned and
accurate colleague Mr. Skene, and others, to transfer forwards twenty
or more years the date at which Hengist and Horsa landed on our
shores.[200] But whether Hengist and Horsa arrived in A.D. 449, or, as
seems more probable, about A.D. 428, if we suppose them in either case
to have been born about A.D. 400,