(1) Hwæt! - thread on Hengest & Horsa because I feel like it. The information here will be mostly based on scholarship by J. R. R. Tolkien.
There's so much to discuss that I will necessarily only touch on a fraction of it here.
(2) The tale of Hengest & Horsa comes to us from the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, where they are famously invited over by Wurtgern (Vortigern), in the Chronicle the king of the Britons, to serve as mercenaries.
They do so, only to turn on the Britons after seeing how weak they are.
(3) Many theories have been proposed as to the origins of the story. As both their names are words for "horse", the dominant explanation for years has been that they are a myth - a reflex of the Indo-European horse-twins also seen in the Greco-Roman Castor and Pollux.
(4) Though not unheard of, both "Hengest" and "Horsa" are also uncommon names, further feeding the idea that they may be legendary.
This fits a general historiographical trend of downplaying the reliability of ancient texts.
(5) *However*, there exists fascinating textual and philological evidence indicating that Hengest at the very least did actually exist. This comes to us from two perhaps surprising sources - the epic poem Beowulf and an incomplete poem called the Finnsburh Fragment.
(6) Both poems describe the same event - a fight at a place called Finnesburg, the seat of king Finn of the then-powerful Frisians. The evident context of the battle was a visit to Finn's realm by the Danish prince Hnæf, which for unclear reasons spiralled into violence
(7) Why is this relevant to our present subject? Because both texts, Beowulf and the Fragment, agree on the name of Prince Hnæf's chief retainer: Hengest.
When Hnæf is killed during the fighting, Hengest takes command. It is him who bargains with Finn and is focused on.
(8) Now some broader context: The date of the fight at Finnsburh is likely around 450, at a time of upheaval in the region. Jutland, hitherto inhabited by the free Jutes, is being subjugated by the Danes, and the Frisians too are starting to feel the pressure of these Sæ-dene
(9) It is in this general context that the story of Hengest & Horsa unfolds. The brothers were regarded as founders of the Jutish kingdom of Kent, and in Tolkien's reading, the very reason for the fight at Finnsburh was the presence of Jutes on both sides (with Hnæf and Finn)
(10)Essentially, Hengest and the other Jutes in Hnæf's retinue were people who, in response to the invasion of the Danes, joined their new masters.
The Jutes in Finn's household, meanwhile, were Jutes who fled the Danish invaders. There was bad blood between the two groups.
(11) In the light of this, the motive behind the British invasion becomes clear: After Hnæf's death, Hengest was without pay and master. Meanwhile, the Jutes and Frisians were increasingly exiled from their homelands. They needed a new home, & Hengest needed pay - enter Britain.
There is much more to be said here - I did not even discuss Hengest's son, the death of Horsa or the nature of the Half-Danes. Perhaps for another thread.
I suggest getting Tolkien’s book Finn and Hengest, by far the best work out there on the subject.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
An extremely fascinating bit of obscure history is that of the Kongsi republics in Western Borneo - Chinese 'company-states' predicated on gold and tin mining that existed on the island between the 1700s-1800s
The term 'kongsi' (公司) is not a Mandarin Chinese word, but instead from Hokkien, a Chinese language spoken primarily in southeastern Fujian, while the related form 'Kung-sze' exists in Hakka, another regional Sinitic language spoken in the south.
This etymology is significant because it belies the origin of the Southeast Asian kongsis. Both the Hakka and Hokkien peoples originated from the north of China, arriving in a south already populated by other Chinese groups. Pushed to the margins, they formed a mercantile culture
THREAD - The Origins of Kiswahili & the Swahili Coast
(1) In recent decades, Swahili has emerged as the African language par excellence, from culture & education to geopolitics. A bridge across the East African community, Swahili has deep roots - but where do they begin?
(2) With 200+ million speakers, the Swahili language is spread today across a vast swathe of eastern Africa, serving as the main national language in Tanzania and (alongside English) in Kenya, and with a growing presence in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Congo.
(3) It is the most widely spoken language entirely native to Africa by a sizeable margin. Despite this, Swahili is not exactly an ordinary member of the Bantu language family - emerging as a trading lingua franca across the eastern seaboard, it carries great foreign influence.
So many people discussing Dune (take a shot) get the prophecy of the Lisan al-Gaib wrong. They point out, correctly, that it is a fake prophecy, planted by the Bene Gesserit, and then conclude from this that Paul's rise as the mahdi is just empty propaganda, but... no.
The prophecy is part of the Bene Gesserit's 'Missionaria Protectiva', a panoply of false superstitions planted across the galaxy to aid the Bene Gesserit sisters in their grand breeding project, should they need help on a given world, by providing them leverage to manipulate.
But that's just the point, they are fake prophecies for the Bene Gesserit to manipulate. The BG were not actually expecting the Kwisatz Haderach to arise among the Fremen, nor on any of those other planets. Not outside their supervision. They *weren't meant to come true*
Most reports from traditional agrarian societies are that people despised their subsistence farming life and would do anything to escape it. See for instance Blythe's Akenfield.
To be clear, I am also v wistful about the passing of the old countryside and rural traditions, and Akenfield is certainly full of old-timers mourning the passing of many venerable and beautiful things.
But it cannot be understated that the day-to-day for most was miserable.
Any serious grappling with the issue of farmland life and tradition - just like any serious engagement with the preservation of traditional culture among peoples like the African Bushmen or Maasai - must face up to the fact that most people did & do not want to live that way.
(1) Easter, like Christmas, Halloween and so many other Western festivals is field for a now-annual set of arguments over the holiday's "true" provenance - Christian or "really" pagan? Much of this roots in a murky and debatable figure - 'Ēostre'
(2) The common narrative for the "Easter is pagan" crowd is well-known at this point: Aside from the extreme cranks drawing references to Mesopotamian Ishtar, the story goes that Easter takes its name from a goddess known in Old English as 'Ēostre' and German as 'Ostara'
(3) With this is usually attached a host of extremely tenuous claims about the supposed connection of other Easter staples - Easter eggs, bunnies - with the cult of Ēostre. These have essentially nothing going for them, but debates about Easter often get bogged down here.
A fundamental tragedy of human society appears to be that certain core societal goods are almost invariably mutually exclusive.
For some reason, friendliness in a culture seems consistently opposed to politeness, joy and vitality rarely co-occurs with safety and contentment.
Anyone who has spent prolonged time in the less developed part of the world, f.ex. Africa, will know that people there are famously extremely friendly and hospitable. Total strangers with no wealth and little spare time will go out of their way to help you on a whim.
At the same time, as such a traveler would also know, this individual friendliness is mirrored by an equal impoliteness and chaos at the broader level. Drivers drive like madmen, govt officials are corrupt, restaurant waiters are cold, etc.