the East of England present the Dutch physical and mental characteristics, but the more influential inhabitants of Norfolk and the neighbourhood are Danes.’[1] This is what might be expected from a settlement of ancient Frisians, and the subsequent domination of the Danes is perhaps indicated by the records of the tenure of land in Domesday Book, in which it is shown that there was in Norfolk a much larger proportion of freemen or sokemen than in any other part of England. These latter were presumably descendants of the Danish people, who supplanted or partly enslaved the descendants of the previous settlers. Beddoe says: ‘A remarkable tall blonde race occupies the hundred of Flegg in the north-east of Norfolk, where the local names are Danish.[2] The same physical characters have been observed around Debenham in Suffolk. People of a blonde complexion form the prevailing type in both Norfolk and Suffolk.’ ‘In Cambridgeshire and the north-west of Essex,’ says Mackintosh, ‘there would appear to be mainly Saxons, but in the east and south of Essex the mass of the people show very few signs of Teutonic descent.’[3] The natural entrance open to settlers in Cambridgeshire and north-west Essex would be by way of the Wash and up the valleys of the Cam and its tributaries. The survival of various tribal names among the place-names of those districts appears to point to a mixed population of much the same tribes as those indicated by the names of Sussex and Wessex, among which Frisian, Jutish, or Gothic, and some of Wendish origin, can certainly be traced. In the same districts customs can be recognised which certainly prevailed among these tribal people.
