of a British population is a possible explanation, and the one which appears to be the most natural. As there are some difficulties in this conclusion, the question arises, Is there any other way in which the origin of these mixed brown people, surrounded by others of a somewhat fairer complexion, can be explained? An alternative explanation is that people of a darker race may have come with the Angles, Saxons, or Danes, and have settled largely in these parts of the country. There is circumstantial evidence that people of a brown or dark complexion did come into England during the time of both the Saxon and the Danish settlements, and this may now be summarised.
First, we have the evidence that Wends were among the settlers either during the early period or later in alliance with the Danes. The Wends, specifically so called by the Germans, included some tribes much darker than the Saxons and Angles, as the remnant of the race still called Wends living on the border of Saxony and Prussia at the present time shows. They are the darkest people in Northern Germany, according to the official census. From 26 to 29 per cent. of the children of the Wendish district of Lusatia, south of Dresden, were shown by this census to be brunettes, notwithstanding the admixture of race with the much fairer people of Teutonic descent which has been going on along this borderland since the dawn of history. All the Slav nations are not dark. Some are as fair as the Scandinavians, while others, such as the Wends and the Czechs of Bohemia, are dark.
The Wendish place-names in Buckinghamshire and on its borders help to show that some people of this race probably settled in that county. Huntingdon tells us that during the later Saxon period they formed part of the Scandian hosts.[1] They were in alliance with the Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Goths, and Frisians, or, in
- ↑ Henry of Huntingdon’s Chronicle, Bohn’s ed., p. 148.
