Hengist and Horsa, real or hors...

[Mr Kriegtooth]

ecrap

I was thinking about it, and Hengist and Horsa are rather mysterious. What does the folks here think?

I presume they are real due to the various mentions of Hengist, at least, in different histories.

[Merula]

I like to believe that they were real, in some fashion at least, but i think this is another case of real events becoming so clouded and the real history blurred and distorted to an extent that they pass into legend instead of fact.

[Kambe]

I think they might be a myth or legend influenced by real people or events. We know that Romans dealt with barbarians by hiring other barbarians and Britons did adopt that idea. Hengist and Horsa were probably leaders of their mercenary groups that later started invasion/migration.

[JVR]

it's hard to say, i try to think of it more like a migration of germanics that slowly took britain east to west, and believe forsure that some of the forerunners of this mass migration could have gone by the name Hengist or Horsa, and that perhaps it became almost a slang word for dreadful enemy because they carved fear into the somwhat peaceful britons at the time, remember superstition was very powerful in those days, when i man didnt lose a battle the people would praise them accordingly whether it be bad or good.

[ceretic]

In my view they were not actually brothers. "Hengist" means "Stallion" in Jutish and "Horsa" means "Horse" in Anglian... I think it was one man named "Stallion" whose name was copied and the presumed to be two men. The Jutish language spoken in Kent, Vectis and the Meon would probably be quite unheard all the way up in Bernicia... so I think it was a mistake in transliteration made by Bede (a Bernician Angle) who was the first to mention them. Hengist was probably killed in the battle "Horsa" was supposed to have died in.

[Mr Kriegtooth]

That sounds feasible...

Also, might just be to modern ears, but Horsa sounds alot like Horse. Just plain horse.

Hengist, to me, sounds like a name that could mean something to do with horses, but not merely horse.

[ceretic]

Yes I think Hengist was the name which someone wrote down "He was called Hengist [which means] Horse" and it became Hengist & Horse by mistake. Nevertheless, it is a fun legend which would have rung true to the Britons, thinking of Romulus and Remus.

[Finn_Folkwald]

As ceretic wrote, Heng(e/i)st means Stallion in German and Horsa is, well, simply Horse. In my Homeland of Lower Saxony - where the Saxons came from - there is a Tradition (more or less to this day) of decorating the roofs of houses with horse-shaped gables. You can see it here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pferdek...(Giebelschmuck) (its in German, but its just for the Pictures, anyways). These figurines are called "Hengst und Hors". The gable of a house is its essence, or representation. If you move with your "Hengst und Hors" (your gable), you move your entire house/household, that is: you migrate. in 453 AD, Saxons coming to Britain was nothing new. The had been coming for centuries. The British coast wasn't called "Saxon Coast" for nothing. They had come as raiders, sometimes as mercenaries. But in the second half of the 5th century something changed. Now the saxons came to stay, to settle. They came with "Hengst und Hors", they migrated. In my opinion, coming with "Hengst und Hors" would have more or less been a figure of speach for Migration (this kind of alliteration is very comon in German even today. For example, moving with "Kind und Kegel" (literally: with children and bastards) would mean you move with your whole family). Later Generations would not understand this figure of speach and just assumed those must have been names of the Saxon leaders. ceretics explanations that those britons saw parallels to other mythical twins sounds reasonable here

[Finn_Folkwald]

As ceretic wrote, Heng(e/i)st means Stallion in German and Horsa is, well, simply Horse. In my Homeland of Lower Saxony - where the Saxons came from - there is a Tradition (more or less to this day) of decorating the roofs of houses with horse-shaped gables. You can see it here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pferdek...(Giebelschmuck) (its in German, but its just for the Pictures, anyways). These figurines are called "Hengst und Hors". The gable of a house is its essence, or representation. If you move with your "Hengst und Hors" (your gable), you move your entire house/household, that is: you migrate. in 453 AD, Saxons coming to Britain was nothing new. The had been coming for centuries. The British coast wasn't called "Saxon Coast" for nothing. They had come as raiders, sometimes as mercenaries. But in the second half of the 5th century something changed. Now the saxons came to stay, to settle. They came with "Hengst und Hors", they migrated. In my opinion, coming with "Hengst und Hors" would have more or less been a figure of speach for Migration (this kind of alliteration is very comon in German even today. For example, moving with "Kind und Kegel" (literally: with children and bastards) would mean you move with your whole family). Later Generations would not understand this figure of speach and just assumed those must have been names of the Saxon leaders. ceretics explanations that those britons saw parallels to other mythical twins sounds reasonable here

[JVR]

wow! that is a totally logical explanation.

[Mr Kriegtooth]

That is true, ive heard that before.

I love the idea of a couple badasses leading the rebellion against the Romans though You didnt pay us on time, were going on strike. And by strike we mean take all your stuff!