Hengist and Horsa - Horse Head Gables

Horse Head Gables

On farmhouses in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany, horse head gables were referred to as "Hengist and Hors" as late as around 1875. Rudolf Simek notes that these horse heads gables can "still be seen today" (from a 2007 edition of a work first published in 1984) and says that the horse head gables confirm that Hengist and Horsa were originally considered mythological, horse-shaped beings. Martin Litchfield West comments that the horse heads may have been remnants of pagan religious practices in the area.

• Sketch of horses' heads carving on a farmhouse gable in Northern Germany

• Horse head gables in Wedemark, Hannover, Northern Germany

• Horse head gables in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Northern Germany

• Horse head gables on German author Thomas Mann's cottage in Nida, Lithuania

• Horse head gables in Arnhem, the Netherlands