Unfortunately, there are few written sources documenting the coming of the Anglo-Saxons. These few were either recorded far away, or were written in Britain but a long time after the events they describe (for example, Bede writing in the 8th century and the late 9th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). However, archaeological discoveries and research (especially into place names) in Britain have fleshed out the story.
A small number of Anglo-Saxons were living in Britain even before the Romans left. After they did, the remaining native Britons appear to have hired more as mercenaries against the threat of invasions by Picts from the north of Scotland in the first half of the 5th century. These were accompanied by their families and eventually settled permanently.
Collectively known as 'Anglo-Saxons' or simply 'Saxons', these people – soon joined by others – were actually Angles (from Schleswig-Holstein in southern Denmark/northern Germany), Saxons (from northern Germany) and Jutes (from Jutland, on the German/Dutch coast). Rather than being the invaders of legend, many seem to have been invited to Britain. However, there is some evidence that, when some of the mercenaries were not supplied with the amenities they had come to expect, they took matters into their own hands, supported by war bands from the continent.
The native Britons were Christian, literacy was relatively high and people spoke in Celtic dialects or Latin. The Anglo-Saxons were pagan and illiterate and spoke Old English, a Germanic language that would form the basis for modern English.
In addition, as more of the 'invaders' arrived, the central government of the Romans was abandoned in favour of loose-knit and feuding hereditary kingships.
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 The End of Roman Britain: Assessing the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the 5th century
www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/
Anglo-Saxon/Anglo-SaxonInvasion.html
Academic website crammed full of information on the literary sources of our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon invaders, the archaeology, place-name studies and much more.
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