view of its excellent communications, it is a country where the conquest by the early settlers might be expected to have been most thorough. Whether the Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire brunettes are partly due to the settlement of Wends and Norwegians of the dark type, as now suggested, or to some other cause, the British theory as a complete explanation. in view of the facts, appears improbable. The chief lines of the Anglo-Saxon advance during the early settlement were the navigable rivers and the Roman roads. The Scandian advances into the country during their conquests and later settlements must have been along the same lines of communication. On one occasion, at least, we read of the Danish host presumably using the Ikenield way, on the march from East Anglia into Dorset.[1]
This consideration of the probable origin of the great proportion of brunettes in two of the south midland counties of England leads us to that of colour-names as surnames and place-names, which may probably have been derived from their original settlers. For example, there is the common name Brown. This has been derived from the Anglo-Saxon brun, signifying brown. It is not reasonable to doubt that when our forefathers called a man Brun or Brown, they gave him this name as descriptive of his brown complexion. The probability that the brunettes were common is supported by the frequent references to persons named Brun in Anglo-Saxon literature. Brun was a name not confined to England in the Anglo-Saxon and later periods. On the contrary, we find that it was a common name in ancient Germany.[2] The typical place-name Bruninga-feld occurs in a charter of Æthelstan dated A.D. 938, ‘in loco qui Bruninga-feld dicitur.’[3] Brunesham, Hants, is mentioned in a charter of Edward the Elder about A.D. 900.[4]
