c.—Considered ethnologically—Saxon rather than Angle. The exceptions that lie against this class will be noticed hereafter.
[§ 704]. Kent—Theoretically, Kent, is Jute rather than Saxon, and Saxon rather than Angle.
Celtic elements, probably, at the minimum.
Predominance of local terms compounded of the word -hurst; as, Penshurst, Staplehurst, &c.
Frisian hypothesis.—The following facts and statements (taken along with those of [§§ 15]-20, and [§§ 129]-131), pre-eminently require criticism.
1. Hengest the supposed father of the Kentish kingdom is a Frisian hero—Kemble's Sächsische Stamtaffel.
2. The dialect of the Durham Gospels and Ritual contain a probably Frisian form.
3. "The country called by the Anglo-Saxons Northumberland, and which may loosely be said to have extended from the Humber to Edinburgh, and from the North Sea to the hills of Cumberland, was peopled by tribes of Angles. Such, at least, is the tradition reported by Beda, who adds that Kent was first settled by Jutes. Who these Jutes were is
not clearly ascertained, but from various circumstances it may be inferred that there was at least a considerable admixture of Frisians amongst them. Hengest, the supposed founder of the Kentish kingdom, is a Frisian hero, and Jutes, 'ëotenas,' is a usual name for the Frisians in Bëówulf. Beda, it is true, does not enumerate Frisians among the Teutonic races by which England was colonized, but this omission is repaired by the far more valuable evidence of Procopius, who, living at the time of some great invasion of Britain by the Germans, expressly numbers Frisians among the invaders. Now the Anglo-Saxon traditions themselves, however obscurely they may express it, point to a close connection between Kent and Northumberland: the latter country, according to these traditions, was colonized from Kent, and for a long time received its rulers or dukes from that kingdom. Without attaching to this legend more importance than it deserves, we may conclude that it asserts an original communion between the tribes that settled in the two countries; and consequently, if any Frisic influence is found to operate in the one, it will be necessary to inquire whether a similar action can be detected in the other. This will be of some moment hereafter, when we enter upon a more detailed examination of the dialect. The most important peculiarity in which the Durham Evangeles and Ritual differ from the Psalter is the form of the infinitive mood in verbs. This in the Durham books is, with exception of one verb, beán, esse, invariably formed in -a, not in -an, the usual form in all the other Anglo-Saxon dialects. Now this is also a peculiarity of the Frisic, and of the Old Norse, and is found in no other Germanic tongue; it is then an interesting inquiry whether the one or the other of these tongues is the origin of this peculiarity; whether, in short, it belongs to the old, the original Frisic form which prevailed in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, or whether it is owing to Norse influence, acting in the ninth and tenth, through the establishment of Danish invaders and a Danish dynasty in the countries north of the Humber."—Kemble. Phil. Trans. No. 35.
The details necessary for either the verification or the overthrow of the doctrine of a similarity of origin between