"
Robin Shoots with
Sir Guy" by
Louis Rhead. Illustration to ''Bold Robin Hood and His Outlaw Band: Their Famous Exploits in Sherwood Forest'': Guy of Gisbourne acts as the Sheriff of Nottinghman's henchman
The word '''henchman''' (Germanic irregular plural: hench''men'') referred originally to one who attended on a horse, that is, a
horse groom. Hence, like
constable and
marshal, also originally stable staff, ''henchman'' became the title of a (subordinate) official in a royal court or noble household. It is now used primarily to describe a stock character in many adventure stories: the
villain's lackey.
Word history
The first part of the word, which is recorded in English since 1360, comes from the
Old English ''hengest'', meaning "horse", notably
stallion, cognates of which also occur in many
Teutonic languages, such as Old Frisian,
German and
Dutch ''hengst''.
The word appears in the name of
Hengest, the Saxon chieftain, and still survives in English in placenames and other names beginning with ''Hingst-'' or ''Hinx-''. It was often rendered as ''Henxman'' in medieval English.
Young henchmen, in act
pages of honour or
squires, rode or walked at the side of their master in processions and the like, and appear in the English royal household from the
14th century until Tudor Queen
Elizabeth I abolished the ''royal henchmen'', known also as the
children of honour.
The word became obsolete for
grooms in English from the middle of the
17th century, but was retained in Scots as "personal attendant of a Highland chief".
It seems to have been revived in English through the novelist
Sir Walter Scott, who took the word and its derivation, according to the ''New English Dictionary'', from
Edward Burt's ''Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland'', together with its erroneous derivation from ''haunch''. The word is, in this sense, synonymous with
gillie, the faithful personal follower of a Highland chieftain, the man who stands at his masters haunch, ready for any emergency.
The modern sense of "obedient or unscrupulous follower" is first recorded 1839, probably based on a misunderstanding of the word as used by Scott, and is often used to describe an out-and-out adherent or partisan, ready to do anything.
In popular culture
Henchmen are common in
mystery,
fantasy, adventure
comic books, and
adventure novels and movies. They are the expendable adherents of the main
villain, always ready to do the master's bidding, to kill or be killed, kidnap, or threaten, as needed. They are either killed by the
hero before the master villain is reached, killed by the hero's
sidekick in a dramatic battle, or even get killed by the master villain as punishment for failure to comply with orders. Henchmen are also often abused and insulted by the villain for their incompetence. Henchmen in this sense are also sometimes called
lackeys or mooks.
A henchman might also be the
non-player character follower of a
player character in
role-playing games. This henchman will follow the player around and assist in various manners. In fiction such supporting characters are normally tied to the hero by bonds of friendship and loyalty and are usually called
sidekicks; the villain's supporters are called henchmen due to the villainous nature of the villain, which makes such personal bonds difficult to establish.
Modern examples
The phrase henchman is also used as a pejorative for any sort of political underling or to present others as such. Thus it was is used for associates of
President George W. Bush[1][2], e.g. by
Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez.
[3] Likewise, it was also used against associates of the former U.S. President
Bill Clinton.
[4]
Members of the
SS, or any of
Adolf Hitler's staff, are often called "Hitler's Henchmen"
[5], a phrase used as the title of a book by
Guido Knopp and a television documentary.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with many other members of
Al-Qaeda under
Osama bin Laden, was called a henchman by western journalists.
[6]
See also
★
Igor (fictional character)
★
Sidekick
★
Nodwick
References
1. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6273
2. http://www.slate.com/id/2100549/
3. http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read/39515
4. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n4_v50/ai_20370955
5. http://www.shoah.dk/Henchmen/henchmen.htm
6. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1613016,00.html
Sources
(incomplete)
★
EtymologyOnLine
★
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