Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race/Chapter 24

by Thomas William Shore

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCLUSION.

ONE of the conclusions to which the evidence that has been brought forward leads us is that the Old English or Anglo-Saxon race was formed on English soil out of many tribal elements, and that the settlers who came here were known among themselves by tribal names, many of which still survive in those of some of the oldest settlements, where they lived under customary family and kindred law. Under the general names Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Northmen, came numerous allies. It appears certain that Frisians of various tribes were, in regard to number, as important as any settlers, and that they came among the Angles as well as among the Jutes and Saxons. Under the Saxon name there can be very little doubt that colonists were settled on the east coast of England before the withdrawal of the Romans.

In reference to Danes and Scandinavians, it appears from the evidence adduced that they brought with them many allies from various countries on the Baltic coasts on which they had previously formed settlements, or which they had brought under subjection. The evidence appears conclusive that there was a Wendish, and consequently a Slavonic, element among the earlier tribal immigrants as well as among the later. It has also been shown that some Celtic people must have been absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon stock.

The Old English race grew by the absorption into it of tribal people descended from various ancient races. It assimilated to a great extent their dialects, and the Old English speech, as it prevailed in various parts of England, was formed by this process. No example of an Anglo-Saxon language has even been found out of Britain itself.^[1] It arose here, like the race itself, by the blending of tribal dialects, of which those of northern origin are important. From the traces we find of Danish or Scandian settlements in nearly all parts of England it appears that the Scandinavian influence in the origin of the Anglo-Saxon race has been underestimated.

In tracing the assimilation of the dialects, as far as it is possible to do so, we trace the formation of the race. As regards those of Scandinavian origin, Stephens says: ‘Manifold dialects were in continual growth and change through the Northern lands, though in the oldest time they all agreed in their bolder features. But local developments and fluctuation of population and settlement went on unceasingly both on the Scandian main and in the English colony. . . . In Scandinavia itself, as in England, the languages and dialects differ. The spoken dialects are many in each Scandian land, and the folk of one district often cannot understand the natives of another. But the Scandian talks in general, especially the Danish, greatly liken the English (especially the North English), and a farm labourer from Jutland, for instance, can after a couple of days be hob-a-nob with the peasantry of northern England and southern Scotland. In the Old Northern Runic Age all these folkships could get on very well together, while they were also very closely allied in speech and blood with the Frisic and Saxon clans, some of which took part in the settlement of England.’^[2] In the Old English speech, as it has come down to us, there are as many as ten words, more or less synonymous, for the word man, and as many for woman.^[3] The language abounds in synonymous words, thus showing a commingling of elements from many sources. Its obscure etymology, its confused and imperfect inflections, and its anomalous and irregular syntax, point to the same conclusion, and indicate a diversity of origin.

It does not appear that the Old English, as the speech of a nation, existed until towards the later Anglo-Saxon period. ‘We are all weary,’ says the distinguished author of the great work on the Old Northern Runic Monuments, ‘of an Anglo-Saxon language that never existed. The Old English in its many dialects we know, and if we know anything we are aware that it is of a distinctly Northern character, whenever Northern writings as old as the Old English can be found to be compared with it.’^[4] The oldest remains of Old Saxon, says Marsh, ‘are not Anglo-Saxon, and I think it must be regarded, not as a language which the colonists or any of them brought with them from the Continent, but as a new speech resulting from the fusion of many separate elements.’^[5] There is, says the same American philologist, ‘linguistic evidence of a great commingling of nations in the body of the intruders.’

All the available evidence, the dialects of the period, the surviving customs, or those known to have existed, and the comparison of place-names with those of ancient Germany and Scandinavia, point to the same conclusion, that the English race had its origin in many parent sources, and arose on English soil, not from some great national immigration, but from the commingling here of settlers from many tribes.

The many traces that remain of the mythology of the early settlers in England point in the same direction. As York Powell has said,^[6] ‘There is one fact about Teutonic mythology as we have it which has never been brought out quite clearly. The mass of legend in more or less simple condition that has come down to us is not the remains of one uniform regular religion . . . but it is the remains of the separate faiths, more or less parallel, of course, of many different tribes and confederacies, each of which had its own several name for each several mythic being, and its own particular version of his or her adventures and affinities.’ The old German world, with its secrets and wonders, and the views of its ancient people regarding their gods and heroes, were, as Wagner says, formerly lost in the darkness of the past, and are now visible in the light of the present.^[7] The same may be said of the old Scandinavian world, and the modern light in which we may view their mythology is due to the long labour of German and Scandinavian scholars. The results of their researches point to the existence of many tribes having differences in their mythological names, beliefs, and practices.

It is to the Old English race more than any other that we must look for the most remarkable examples of the absorption within it of people of many various tribes and nations. It is probably largely owing to this absorption within itself of people of other descent that the race owes much of its vigour. In all ages of the world and in all countries it is and has been the strongest and ablest of a tribe or nation that has been selected by natural circumstances or political considerations for conquest and colonization. Those who have gone to the wars, or have become successful colonists, have been among the ablest of the race. England, during the centuries in which her settlement went on, received and absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon stock immigrants from probably almost all the tribes of Northern Europe. As the newer and greater Anglo-Saxon stock in Britain, America, and the British colonies is at the present time constantly absorbing into itself people of all European races, so during the centuries of its growth tribal elements were constantly becoming blended and assimilated in the old English nation.

As it was in the Old English time, so it has been more or less continuously throughout the course of our national life; streams of immigrants, now many, now few, have found in England a refuge from oppression, or homes when driven from their own lands. They have been absorbed among the people of England. Streams of colonists for more than three hundred years have gone out from our shores, and have formed new nations in the Westen and Southern hemispheres, and these, repeating the old story, have absorbed and are absorbing into the newer and greater Anglo-Saxon race immigrants from all European countries.

1. Marsh, G. P., ‘Lectures on the English Language,’ First Series, p. 43.
2. Stephens, G., ‘Old Northern Runic Monuments,’ iii. 396.
3. Turner, Sharon, ‘History of the Anglo-Saxons,’ ii. 379.
4. Stephens. G., loc. cit., ii. 516.
5. Marsh, G. P., loc cit., pp. 42, 43.
6. Saxo Grammaticus, translated by Elton, introduction by York Powell, cxv.
7. Wagner, W., ‘Asgard and the Gods,’ p. 2.