The Angles is a modern English word for a Germanic-speaking people who took their name from the cultural ancestor of Angeln, a modern district located in Schleswig, Germany. Ancient Angeln preceded all modern national distinctions and was probably not coterminous with the modern. For more information, see under Angeln.

Possibly the first instance of the Angles in recorded history is in Tacitus' Germania, chapter 40, in which the Anglii are mentioned in passing in a list of Germanic tribes. He gives no precise indication of their geographical position, but states that, together with six other tribes, they worshipped a goddess named Nerthus, whose sanctuary was situated on "an island in the Ocean."

The other tribes are the Reudigni, Aviones, Varini, Eudoses, Suarini and Nuitones, which are together described as being behind ramparts of rivers and woods; that is, inaccessible to attack. As the Eudoses are the Jutes, these names probably refer to localities in Jutland or the Baltic coast; i.e., they are all Cimbri or Teutones. The coast contains sufficient estuaries, inlets, rivers, islands, swamps and marshes to have been then inaccessible to those not familiar with the terrain, such as the Romans, who just wrote it off as unknown and inaccessible country.

At the present time the majority of scholars believe that the Anglii had lived from the beginning on the coasts of the Baltic, probably in the southern part of the Jutish peninsula. The evidence for this view is derived partly from English and Danish traditions dealing with persons and events of the 4th century (see below), and partly from the fact that striking affinities to the cult of Nerthus as described by Tacitus are to be found in Scandinavian, especially Swedish and Danish, religion.

Investigations in this subject have rendered it very probable that the island of Nerthus was Sjælland (Zealand), and it is further to be observed that the kings of Wessex traced their ancestry ultimately to a certain Scyld, who is clearly to be identified with Skiöldr, the mythical founder of the Danish royal family (Skiöldungar). In English tradition this person is connected with "Scedeland" (pl.), i.e. Scandinavia, while in Scandinavian tradition he is specially associated with the ancient royal residence at Leire in Sjælland.

The account in Germania is contradictory to that of the silent geographers in at least one major point. Tacitus viewed the Baltic as the Suebian Sea and lists the seven tribes above as being in Suebian territory. The Suebi were among the Herminones of central Germany. And yet Pliny, who is just as creditable, accounts for the Teutones as being Inguaeones, the Ingaevones of Tacitus. In Strabo, the Suebi are to the south of the coast. The Suebian language went on to become Old High German, while the Angles and Jutes were among the speakers of Old Saxon.

An explanation no doubt existed, whether one of the authors misunderstood or the distribution of tribes in the 1st century resulted from an overlay of different historical schemes. At this time there is no verifiable answer to the question and no good reason for forcing an answer by excluding evidence. History is by nature often contradictory. It is only an incomplete story.