Ket and Wig appear in the Gesta Danorum

Gesta Danorum

Gesta Danorum is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th century author Saxo Grammaticus . It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark and is an essential source for the nation's early history...

as the sons of Frowin, the governor of Schleswig

Schleswig

Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany...

. Wig also appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...

as the son of Freawine (Frowin) and father of Gewis

Legendary ancestors of Cerdic of Wessex

The ancestry of the Kings of Wessex has long attracted historians' interest because the monarchs of England trace their lineage from them. Yet scholarly analysis suggests the early part of it is largely an invention of the 8th and 9th centuries....

, eponymous

Eponym

An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

 ancestor of the kingdom of Wessex

Wessex

The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...

 and their kings, but this is thought to be a late manipulation, inserting these heroes into a pedigree borrowed from a rival royal house, in which the Bernicia

Bernicia

Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

n eponym Bernic was replaced by the Wessex Gewis.

Their father Frowin/Freawine was challenged to combat by the Swedish king Athisl

Eadgils of the Myrgings

Eadgils of the Myrgings is a king of the Myrgings a clan of Saxon origin who is mentioned on lines 93-96 in the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith. He would have lived in the 5th century and is mentioned as the lord of the scop himself in the poem....

, and killed. King Wermund, who liked their father, subsequently raised Ket and Wig as his own. They later avenged their father, but they fought against Athisl two against one, a national disgrace that was redeemed by their brother-in-law, King Wermund's son Offa

Offa of Angel

Offa was the 4th-great-grandfather of Creoda of Mercia, and was reputed to be a great-grandson of Woden, English god of war and poetry and creator of Middle-Earth, the realm of man. Offa was the son of Wermund, and the father of Angeltheow...

, when he killed two Saxons at the same time, in "single combat". This event is referred to in Widsith

Widsith

Widsith is an Old English poem of 144 lines that appears to date from the 9th century, drawing on earlier oral traditions of Anglo-Saxon tale singing. The only text of the fragment is copied in the Exeter Book, a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late 10th century containing...

as a duel against Myrgings.