Nothing is known of Wehha or of his rule, as no written records have survived from this period in East Anglian history. Wehha may occur on a bronze pail excavated from the Chessell Down cemetery on the Isle of Wight, which possesses the runic inscription wecca. O'Loughlin notes that Wehha and his father Wilhelm can be linked with a person named Wehilo and his father Weho, who are listed in a genealogy found a manuscript of the laws of Rothari, a 7th-century king of the Lombards. Lindqvist's conjecture that Wehha is a hypocoristic form of the name Weohstan is linguistically not possible, according to O'Loughlin, as Weohstan is a later West Saxon name. It has also been suggested that Wehha is a regular hypocoristic form of Old English names beginning with Wē(o)h-, for instance in the unattested name * Weohha. The name Wehha has been linked as a hypocoristic (shortened) version of Wihstān, the father of Wiglaf in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, strengthening the evidence for a connection between the Wuffingas dynasty and a Swedish royal dynasty, the Scylfings. See Wuffingas for a more complete family tree. Martin Carver warns against using the scant material that exists to draw detailed inferences about the earliest Wuffingas kings.

Kirby is among those historians who have concluded from this information that Wuffa's father was the founder of the Wuffingas line.ĭespite the Wuffingas' long list of ancestors - that stretch back to their pagan gods - their power in the region can only have been established in the middle third of the 6th century, if Wehha is taken as the dynastic founder. According to the 19th-century historian Sir Francis Palgrave, Guercha was a distortion of Wuffa. The History of the Britons lists Guillem Guercha's descendants and ancestors: 'Woden begat Casser, who begat Titinon, who begat Trigil, who begat Rodmunt, who begat Rippa, who begat Guillem Guercha, who was the first king of the East Angles'. Wehha's son Wuffa, after whom the Wuffingas dynasty is named, is also listed.Īccording to the 9th century History of the Britons, a man listed as Guillem Guercha was the first of his line to rule as king of the East Angles. According to this list, which is also known as the Anglian collection, Wehha was the son of Wilhelm, who was the son of Hryþ, who was the son of Hroðmund, the son of Trygil, the son of Tyttman, the son of Casere Odisson, the son of the god Wōden. The name Wehha is included in tallies of the ruling Wuffingas dynasty: the name appears as Ƿehh Ƿilhelming - Wehha Wilhelming - in the East Anglian tally from the Textus Roffensis, an important collection of Anglo-Saxon laws and Rochester Cathedral registers that has survived in the form of two distinct books that were bound together in the 13th century. Wehha is a semi-historical figure and no surviving evidence has survived to show he actually existed or was ever king of the East Angles. It has been suggested that the Devil's Dyke (near modern Newmarket) at one time formed part of the kingdom's western boundary, but as its construction can only be dated from between the 4th and 10th centuries, it cannot be established to be of Early Anglo-Saxon origin. The southern neighbours of the East Angles were the East Saxons and across the other side of the Fens were the Middle Angles. The main land route from East Anglia would at that time have been a land corridor, along which ran the prehistoric Icknield Way. Isolated to the north and east by the North Sea, there were mainly impenetrable forests to the south and the swamps and scattered islands of the Fens on its western border. The extent of the kingdom of the East Angles can be determined from a variety of sources. As it is now believed that these artefacts were made in England, there is less agreement amongst scholars that the Wuffingas dynasty was directly linked with Sweden. He used the evidence of the finds at Sutton Hoo to conclude that the Wuffingas originated from Sweden, noting that the sword, helmet and shield found in the ship burial at Sutton Hoo may have been family heirlooms, brought across from Sweden in the beginning of the 6th century.

Rainbird Clarke identified Wehha, the founder of the dynasty, as one of the leaders of the new arrivals: the East Angles are tentatively identified with the Geats of the Old English poem Beowulf. Rainbird Clarke, migrants from southern Jutland 'speedily dominated' the Sandlings, an area of southeast Suffolk, and then, by around 550, 'lost no time in conquering the whole of East Anglia'. Wehha is thought to have been one of the earliest rulers of East Anglia, an independent and long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom that was established in the 6th century, and which includes the modern English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.Īccording to R. A topographical map of the kingdom of the East Angles

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