Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/237

Rh were probably some of the Wendish or Northern Serbian race who were at that time in alliance with other Northern tribes. The ancient Vandals have left permanent traces of their extensive conquests more or less in alliance with the Goths. Their settlements extended from North Africa and Spain to the present Slav states of Eastern Europe, and thence northwards to the Baltic. Along this extended line of ancient Vandal occupation we find historical evidence or other traces of their allies, the Goths. If they were allies, at times, in other parts of Europe, there cannot be much room for doubt that they may also have been allies in England. The evidence of the settlement of some Wends among the Gewissas of Hampshire is derived partly from the county itself, and partly from traces of them in Wiltshire and Dorset. There are nine manors in Hampshire on which borough-English has been traced. The historical statement of Bede that Rugians were among the ancestors of the people of England living in his time cannot be explained away. In Bede’s time there must have been a common knowledge that part of the English people were descended from Rugians, and these were Wends, the Isle of Rügen being the chief seat of Vandal worship in the North of Europe.

In the parts of South Hampshire which were occupied by the Goths we find the early names Ruwanoringa in a Saxon charter and Ruenore in Domesday Book for a place now called Rowner. The equivalence of the old g sound in such names as Rügen to that of the later w is proved by the oldest records of both Germany and England. These names of the Saxon period certainly appear to indicate a settlement of Rugians—i.e., Wends or Vandals. Attention has already been drawn to the various names by which ancient tribes were known. The name Rugians is, perhaps, a native name, and used as their own designation by these people