Anglo-Saxons; Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066
In the first place, it must be remembered that, by common consent, only
the east and south coasts and the country as far as the central
dividing ridge can be accounted as to any overwhelming extent English in
blood. It is admitted that the population of the Scottish Highlands, of
Wales, and of Cornwall is certainly Celtic. It is also admitted that
there exists a large mixed population of Celts and Teutons in
Strathclyde and Cumbria, in Lancashire, in the Severn Valley, in Devon,
Somerset, and Dorset. The northern and western half of Britain is
acknowledged to be mainly Celtic. Thus the question really narrows
itself down to the ethnical peculiarities of the south and east.
Here, the surest evidence is that of anthropology. We know that the pure
Anglo-Saxons were a round-skulled, fair-haired, light-eyed,
blonde-complexioned race; and we know that wherever (if anywhere) we
find unmixed Germanic races at the present day, High Dutch, Low Dutch,
or Scandinavian, we always meet with some of these same personal
peculiarities in almost every individual of the community. But we also
know that the Celts, originally themselves a similar blonde Aryan race,
mixed largely in Britain with one or more long-skulled dark-haired,
black-eyed, and brown-complexioned races, generally identified with the
Basques or Euskarians, and with the Ligurians. The nation which resulted
from this mixture showed traces of both types, being sometimes blonde,
sometimes brunette; sometimes black-haired, sometimes red-haired, and
sometimes yellow-haired. Individuals of all these types are still found
in the undoubtedly Celtic portions of Britain, though the dark type
there unquestionably preponderates so far as numbers are concerned. It
is this mixed race of fair and dark people, of Aryan Celts with
non-Aryan Euskarians or Ligurians, which we usually describe as Celtic
in modern Britain, by contradistinction to the later wave of Teutonic
English.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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