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Hengest
(redirection from Horsa)

contents of this page
The fiction character   
The historic character   
Comments   

The fiction character    

According to the story line in the BoLT2, son of Eriol born by a mortal woman named Cwen in Heligoland. Brother of Horsa and Heorrenda (the Half elven).

Ottor Waefre (Eriol) settled on the island of Heligoland in the North Sea, and wedded a woman named Cwen. They had two sons named Hengest and Horsa 'to avenge Eoh'. Then sea longing gripped Ottor Waefre (he was 'a son of Earendel', born under his beam), and after the death of Cwen he left his young children. Hengest and Horsa avenged Eoh and became great chieftains, but Ottor Waefre set out to seek, and find, TolEressëa (se uncupa holm, 'the unknown island').
BoLT2

Later…

The sons of Eriol, Hengest, Horsa, and Heorrenda, conquered the Island (TolEressëa) and it became 'England'. They were not hostile to the Elves, and from them the English have 'the true tradition of the fairies'.

Kortirion, ancient dwelling of the fairies, came to be known in the tongue of the English as Warwick; Hengest dwelt there, …

BoLT2


The historic character    

Hengest and Horsa, the brother chieftains who led the first Saxoi~ bands which settled in England.

See Of the Seven Invasions

They were apparently called in by the British king Vortigern (q.v.)to defend him against the Picts. The place of their landing is said to have been Ebbsfleet in Kent. Its date is not certainly known, 450 - 455 being given by the English authorities, 428 by the Welsh (see KENT).

The settlers of Kent are described by Bede as Jutes (q.v.), and there are traces in Kentish custom of differences from the other Anglo Saxon kingdoms. Hengest and Horsa were at first given the island of Thanet as a home, but soon quarrelled with their British allies, and gradually possessed themselves of what became the kingdom of Kent. In 455 the Saxon Chronicle records a battle between Hengest and Horsa and Vortigern at a place called Aegaels threp, in which Horsa was slain. Thenceforward Hengest reigned in Kent, together with his son Aesc (Oisc). Both the Saxon Chronicle and the Historia Brittonum record three subsequent battles, though the two authorities disagree as to their issue. There is no doubt, however, that the net result was the expulsion of the Britons from Kent.

According to the Chronicle, which probably derived its information from a lost list of Kentish kings, Hengest died in 488, while his son Aesc continued to reign until 512.

From the 1911 Encyclopedia

http://72.1911encyclopedia.org/H/HE/HENGEST_and_HORSA.htm


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