The names of two brothers who, according to tradition, led the Jutish invasion of Britain and founded the kingdom of Kent. Hengist (Hengst) would more properly be written Hengest. They are said to have been invited by Vortigern in 449 to help the Britons defend themselves against the Picts and Scots to the north, to have settled in Kent, and to have fought a battle with Vortigern, in which Horsa was killed (c.455).

The names may all be mythical, but historians generally agree that in the 5th cent. a Jutish chief and his retinue did arrive in Kent, did serve a British king, and did revolt, and that various battles prepared the way for the later settlement of Kent by the Jutes.

HENGEST

Accounts of Hengest
There are several early sources that refer to a "Hengest". The earliest clear source is Bede, whose Ecclesiastical History of the English People (written about 730) states that Hengest was brought to Britain by Vortigern as a mercenary, to fight the Picts. Bede's dating puts this at between 449 and 455, but this cannot be treated as definite. Bede also says that Hengest was a Jute, and that the Jutes settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight; Saxons and Angles settled the south and east of England, respectively. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives a similar version, apparently using Bede as a source; this part of the Chronicle probably dates from the late ninth century. There is also a character named Hengest who appears in two Old English poems: "The Fight at Finnsburg" and Beowulf. From the two poems together, it is apparent that Hengest is a Dane, in King Hnaef's company, who on Hnaef's death leads his men against King Finn of Frisia.

The Beowulf and Finnesburg references are by no means necessarily to the same person as the mercenary described by Bede, but it has been conjectured that they are. P.H. Blair has suggested that in Hengist we may have a history of a Danish chieftain's progression from Denmark, to Frisia, to southern England, in about the first half of the fifth century.

It has also been suggested that Hengest is a purely mythical figure, though it is clear from archaeological evidence that Germanic settlements in Kent had definitely begun by the time Hengest is supposed to have come to Britain. The distinction Bede draws betweens Jutes, Angles and Saxons is also supported by fact that artifacts from Kent are distinctively different from those found elsewhere in the country, implying a different cultural origin for Kentish settlers.

Following his victories over the Picts, Hengest invited more immigrants from Germany to settle in Great Britain and then rebelled against Vortigern because the Britons refused to make an agreed payment, establishing himself as king in Kent. Both Hengest and Horsa are described as being Jutes, and sons of a Jutish chief named Wihtgils.

The historical existence of Hengest and Horsa has been called into question many times, with many historians labelling these two as legendary 'divine twins' or culture heroes along the order of Romulus and Remus. It is perhaps likelier that Hengest, meaning 'Stallion' in Anglo-Saxon (in modern German and Dutch 'Hengst' and in Danish and Swedish 'Hingst' is still the word for a stallion), was an honorific name or nickname for an officer. Horsa was a later accretion to the story.

Later accounts in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Historia Britonum, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, and Wace's Roman de Brut add further details from tradition and legend about Hengest's career. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates his death to 488, but does not provide a cause. According to some tellings of the Arthurian legend, the British king Uther Pendragon killed him.

In culture
Hengest is a character in the Fight at Finnsburg narrative mentioned in the Finnsburg Fragment and the Beowulf poem. In these texts, Hengest is a Danish warrior who takes control of the Danish forces after the prince Hnæf is killed, and succeeds in killing the Frisian lord Finn in revenge for his lord's death. The events in these accounts had a historical basis, and have been supposed by historians to occur in approximately AD 450 This makes these events contemporary with the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England, though what connection (if any) exists between the two Hengests is unknown.

Nevertheless, some have speculated that the two Hengests are one and the same. A point against this theory is the fact that one Hengest is described as a Jute and the other a Dane, though this does not serve as a conclusive disproof, as distinctions between adjacent groups (both Jutes and Danes lived in Denmark) were sometimes vague.

Hengest is the subject of the 1620 play Hengist, King of Kent, or The Mayor of Quinborough by Thomas Middleton.

HORSA

Horsa, according to tradition, was a fifth century warrior and brother of Hengest who took part in the invasion and conquest of Britain from its native Romano-British and Celtic inhabitants. It is often said that his name is Anglo-Saxon for "stud", but this is not quite accurate; the Anglo-Saxon for "horse" is hors (genitive horses). His name Horsa (genitive Horsan) looks like a hypocoristic form for a compound word name whose first component is Hors-.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 455 says that "Her Hengest 7 Horsa fuhton wiþ Wyrtgeorne þam cyninge, in þære stowe þe is gecueden Agælesþrep, 7 his broþur Horsan man ofslog; 7 æfter þam Hengest feng to rice 7 Æsc his sunu." (Here Hengest and Horsa fought against King Vortigern in the place that is called Aylesford, and his brother Horsa was killed, and after that Hengest and his son Æsc took the kingdom.)

It is said that a monument was raised in his memory (White Horse Stone near Maidstone is the traditional site); but see the next paragraph.

Twin warriors are a common theme in folklore, and because our earliest witness to Horsa's existence, Bede, mentions a stone existed that recorded his name, recent scholars have speculated that perhaps:-

His name came from a Roman inscription which was illegible except for part of the Latin word cohors (genitive cohortis). That stone may have been Horsa's supposed gravestone. His name arose as a misreading of a gloss in a manuscript that was written to define the name Hengest as meaning 'horse'.

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