Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/377

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Settlements in the South-Western Counties.
363

tants do not appear to have been all of one race. Some were descendants probably of the Neolithic or old Iberian stock, and some of the people of the Bronze Age. The former were long-headed; the latter were broad-headed. Beddoe recognises three race types among the Cornish people: (1) The Neolithic or Iberian; (2) the British or bronze broad-headed; (3) the Saxon or other Teutonic invaders. The physical type which struck his eye most in Cornwall was the first crossed by the second.[1] Topinard, who also made observations in Cornwall, found there many people of a fair, tall type, with blue eyes, blonde hair, and a reddish complexion.[2] These are clearly descendants from Teutonic or other settlers. A reddish complexion of some kind is, according to Ripley, one of the most general characters of the Slavs of Russia.[3] Beddoe says also of the blue eyes: ‘I am not ready to admit that pure blue eyes are more common in the Teutonic than in the Slavonic or any other race.’[4] There is, however, another trace of this racial character among the Cornish people, which is locally connected with a settlement of Danes, and survives to the present time. In all the western parishes of Cornwall there has existed time out of mind a great antipathy to red-haired families, who are popularly supposed to be descendants of Danes, and, much to their own disgust, are often called Danes or Deanes. As late as 1870 this local prejudice came out in a magisterial inquiry at Penzance.[5]

The possibility that the Danes and Northmen who settled in parts of Cornwall had some Wendish allies among them finds support in the folk-lore of the county. Lach-Szyrma[6] has drawn attention to the remarkable resemblance that exists between Slavonic and Cornish folk-tales, and has mentioned instances in which practi-

  1. Beddoe, J., Journal of the Anthropological Inst., New Series, i. 328.
  2. Ibid., i. 329, quoted by Beddoe.
  3. Ripley, W. Z., ‘Races of Europe,’ 346, 361.
  4. Beddoe, J., ‘Races of Britain,’ p. 76.
  5. Bottrell, W., ‘Traditions of West Cornwall,’ 148.
  6. Lach-Szyrma, W. S., Folk-Lore Record, iv. 52.