To those that don't study the early medieval period, the names Hengist and Horsa are, at most, Arthurian characters. But their role, as the first named Germanic inhabitants of the British Isles (the first named 'Anglo-Saxons'), has given them a great deal of importance in imaginations for millennia. Their names lie on the horizon of our history - no matter how hard we look, we can't tell if we can see them or not. Are they a phantom that we've imagined? Or are they a real feature of our history?

This video explores Hengist and Horsa - looking at all of our evidence, and considering various possibilities for their existence. The answer to the question is, frankly, a lot more complicated than I expected when I started researching. But I hope that it makes for an entertaining video.

Bonus video:    • The Staffordshire Hoard, the Stylised...  

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Bibliography:

Stenton, Frank, Anglo-Saxon England III edn, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1971).

Fleming, Robin, Britain After Rome, (London, Penguin Books, 2010).

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bede.html)

Beowulf (https://heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html)

West, Donald, The Divine Twins: an Indo-european Myth in Germanic Tradition, (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1968).

Tolkien, John, Finn and Hengest, ed. By Alan Bliss (New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983). (I would seriously recommend this read; it says much more than I ever could, and it’s the reason why this is its own video.)

John Adams’ letter:
https://www.google.co.uk/books/editio...