Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/397

Rh rents of two mills were paid in Danish money computation. When King Eadgar promulgated his laws in these words, ‘Let this ordinance be common to all the people, whether English, Danes, or Britons, on every side of my dominions,’ he must have had in mind settlements of Danish-speaking people in the south and west of England, such as this in Gloucestershire, as well as the greater Danish settlement in the northern and eastern counties.

There is evidence, in addition to that of existing place-names, which points to the settlement of some Hunni or Hunsings in the valley of the Worcestershire Avon. There are two Saxon charters relating to grant of land at Hampton, close to Evesham, which in the eighth century bore the name of Huntena-tun, the -tun of the Hunte or Hunsi, the name being mentioned in the genitive plural in both charters—one a grant by Aldred with leave of King Offa, dated 757-775 ; the other a grant by King Acgfrid, dated 790. In a charter of Eadgar, dated 969, relating to land at Witney, there is a reference to the same settlement in the boundaries, the name ‘huntena weg’ being mentioned—i.e., a road that led to the Huntena district, or Huntena-tun. A few miles east of the Anglo-Saxon Huntena-tun is Church Honeybourne, with its hamlets Cow Honeybourne and Honeybourne Leasows. These surviving names and the reference to the Huntena show that there was a settlement of people who bore that name in this district, and it should be remembered that in the old country of the Hunsings and Frisians there is a river called Hunte, as well as the Hunse.

Reference has already been made to the fair aspect of the people of east Gloucestershire at the present time. The circumstantial evidence of the place-names points to the settlement of tribal people of various blonde races in this district. Among such races are the Fins, concerning whose aspect the proverbial expression ‘as