Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/395

Rh The head form also he judges to be mostly of the two types found at Bremen, which are also those commonly found in Anglo-Saxon graves. He says that the West Saxons appear to have settled numerously in the Upper Thames districts before they began to interfere with the inhabitants of the valley of the Bristol Avon—i.e., they pushed their settlement northwards at first rather than westwards.

In the same district, near Bourton, in north-east Gloucestershire, the Anglo-Saxon place-names Cwéntan and Cwénena-broc occur, referring to Quinton and to a stream which is named as a boundary.

The name Cwénena-broc brings us to a curious difficulty—viz., to determine whether Cwénena is the genitive plural of Cwén, a Fin, or Cwén, a woman. It has been explained as the women’s brook, but the name Cwéntan, now Quinton, mentioned in a Saxon charter, is in the same locality. There is a well-known story of Adam of Bremen being present at a conversation during which one of the old Scandinavian kings spoke of Quénland, or Quéna-land, the country of the Quéns or Quains. As the stranger’s knowledge of Old Danish was very imperfect, he supposed the king had said Quinna-land, the country of women or amazons. Hence arose the absurd story of the terra feminarum, or amazons’ country, which spread through the whole of Europe, through mistaking the name for that of a woman.’ The name Cwénena-broc must mean either the brook of the Quéns or Fins, as allies of Scandinavia and their descendants, or that of a community of women. Which is the more probable? It is a boundary name, apparently a boundary of Cwéntan, and we must either recognise a settlement of Fins or a settlement of women. During the period when the dialects of many tribal people were