Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/124

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110
Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.

leaving their country because they were brunettes, or that the Wends, who undoubtedly settled in England in considerable numbers, were none of them of a brunette type.

The survival of some people with broad heads and of a brown type in parts of Drenthe, Guelderland, and Overijssel appears unmistakab1e.[1] They present a remarkable contrast in appearance to their Frisian neighbours, who are of a different complexion in regard to hair and skin, and are specially characterized as long-headed.

It was in Gelderland that ancient Thiel was situated, and the men of Thiel and those of Brune were apparently recognised as different people from the real Frisians, for in the later Anglo-Saxon laws relating to the sojourn of strangers within the City of London it is stated that ‘the men of the Emperor may lodge within the city wherever they please, except those of Tiesle and of Brune.’[2]

The evidence concerning the origin of the broad-headed Slavonic nations connects them with the broad-headed and still older Alpine brown race of Central Europe. The most generally accepted theory among anthropologists as to the physical relationship of the Slavs is that they were always, as the majority of them are to-day, of the same stock as the broad-headed Alpine race.[3] This old race has sometimes been called the Celtic, but it is perhaps more accurate to say that it is the very ancient stock from which the old Celtic race of the British Bronze Age was an offshoot. This curious circumstance, consequently, comes before us in considering the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England. If the brunette character of the people of any part of England at the present time is due to a survival of the race characters of the Celts of

  1. Réclus, E., loc. cit., iv. 252.
  2. Liber Albus, ii. 63, and ii. 531.
  3. Ripley, W. Z., loc cit., 355.