Beowulf

>> to do pg structure

Historical background Excerpt from THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH PODCAST EPISODES 41 -45 Presented by Kevin W. Stroud

Both Old Norse and Old English had the word horse. But they also had another word which also
meant ‘horse.’ In English, that word was hengest, and in Old Norse it was hesta. The English
version hengest eventually died out. But the Viking settlers in Britain used their version of the
word in the term hesta-maðr to mean a horse-boy or horse attendant. It appears that the latter
Anglo-Saxons took that term from the Vikings, and they substituted the English word hengest for
the Norse word hesta and it became hengest-maðr. And that term eventually produced the term
henchman – originally meaning a horse-attendant or servant, and later meaning a bully or
enforcer – like a gangster’s henchman. 

26But those two terms horse and hengest are closely tied to Germanic mythology. According to
Bede, the first two Germanic leaders who were ‘invited’ to Britain were two brothers named
‘Hengest’ and ‘Horsa.’ Supposedly those two brothers were Jutes, and they established the
kingdom of Kent. And scholars have always been intrigued by this story because both names
mean ‘horse’ – ‘Hengest’ and ‘Horsa.’ And since horses were so important and prestigious, it
was apparently an honor to have a name which meant ‘horse.’ But I mention this here because that
name ‘Hengest’ also pops up in Beowulf. So there are some interesting connections here, but
we’ll explore those connections in the next episode.