This is an old thread, but now that its taken up, I'll reply anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gil
First: not all saxons had fair/red hair; moreover there is historical proof that blonde hair was very common and that alot of saxons, angles and danes dyed their light brown hair to become blonde (blonde was part of their "ideal" image).
Secondly: dark haired and dark eyed english would mostly descend from celtic Britons (the original brythonic tribes which were of iberian origin), Normans (a large percentage of Normans had dark hair from frankish/breton source), Welsh (which incidentally could also be considered Brythonic) and other minor groups.
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To be honest, seen from outside, I dont believe "Celts"/Irish/Scots are darker than the AS, because they are Celtic. There are conflicting studies as to average hair color, but most suggest that the trend is pretty much identical in most parts of Britain, Celtic or not. But my best friend being half Irish, his father is blond and very light blue eyed (more than the average Dane and Jute, anyway), his mother dark brown haired, he is blond, and another old friend of mine also being half Irish (for some reason I know a lot of Irish) and half Danish is also blond, his father the same, and generally Irish people I see are very fair skinned and light haired and eyed, I dont believe that they are darker just because a few are, or because they are of "iberian" origin. Some Danes are relatively tan and dark haired too. For an example, my teacher would probably not be considered white, however, I've asked him, and he is completely sure (documented by family genealogist) that all of his ancestry is Jutish. Another example is my father, uncle and my brother, who are all tan and black haired. There are indeed examples out of the ordinary, but they dont change the general trend which is: Danes are mostly pretty fair, and your average Dane is brown haired. The exception to the rule prove nothing. I would say the same with the Irish and the Scottish. And I am talking out of both experience and to a degree some of the statistical studies, though I do not care much for them, seeing as they are just generalizing. You can draw an as good picture, if not better, by paying a visit to Dublin.
From my experience, the only people I find are plausibly darker in average, are the Welsh. From what I have seen, they are generally darker than both Irish and Scots and English.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Milesian
All of them? That would be pretty suprising to say the least.
From what I can tell, blondes were present in the British Isles long before the arrival of Germanic tribes (assuming the Brythons did not differ much from the Goidels) as such hair colouring is frequently commented on in the Irish sagas.
On the other hand, one of the names the Irish applied to the Danes was Dubh Gall (Dark Foreigners)  |
While I dont know if its plausible to say that Danes are darker than Irish, I know that the Irish are very fair themselves, which would in any case explain this.
To original thread: I dont know about that "interpretation", but unless you are going to argue that Saxons are R1b, which is nonsense, then the English undoubtedly have a Celtic/Brythonic/native component, considering their R1b lineage. It could also be from the Jutes and Danes, considering that Jutland and Denmark has a relatively high R1b level, but I dont believe the extent of their migration (which, in the case of the Jutes, was the most insignificant of all Germanics, all though they were the only non-Vikings, i.e. actually invited) can account for this. They were even ethnically cleansed by the AS in some areas, and their legacy is very limited considering that what is left of them is written off as Anglo-Saxon and not Jutish, by the AS themselves (i.e. the AS Chronicles) and with this cultural intolerance of them, it is inconceivable that they could have a major genetic impact on the modern English. Therefore we must assume that it is Brythonic.
