The learned author of "British Family Names," speaking of certain lists of ancient Norman names alleged to be authentic, says: "Of this great array of time-honored names, few are now borne by direct representatives. They exist among the old gentry rather than in the peerage. In the majority of cases, the later descendants of illustrious families have sunk into poverty and obscurity, unconscious of their origin." They have not "vanished from the world" (as Mr. Freeman says), but are daily coming to the front in circumstances requiring capacity for leadership in affairs. "Even now," says the observant author of an anonymous treatise,[9] "agricultural laborers and coal miners can not combine for objects which demand the exercise of practical ability without finding themselves led by those who, though in humble stations, bear names of undoubted Norman origin," citing, by way of example, Joseph Arch (De Arques, Normandy). These quotations will fitly introduce to the reader the long and suggestive alphabetical series of Norman names which the compiler has made the basis of extended critical remark.

In examining this series, one naturally inquires: How do we know that the thousands of names, taken from an old English Directory, are Norman? Simply by the circumstance that the same names occur in the records of Normandy in the Eleventh and Twelfth centuries—the references in most cases being to the great Rolls of the Exchequer, 1180-1200. Comparative reference to the English records at an early date—Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth centuries—raises a strong presumption that names appearing on the Norman Rolls before the Conquest, and on English records after the Conquest, were derived from Normandy, and that names now accounted English were originally Norman names. A similar correspondence between the names in the records of a Virginian court house and those of official records in Kentucky, to the mind of a contemporary genealogist, would carry decisive weight. It is the weight of concurrent testimony of high character from authentic sources. Identitas colligitur ex multitudine signorum. Even one surname in like circumstances is a significant record of individual descent. What shall be said of thousands historically traced—the continuous record of a single race? Thirty years ago it was estimated by an English scholar that the English race proper comprised thirty millions of people—a great composite nation; the Saxon, Dane, and Norman—a trinity of races all derived from the same ancient stock (the Gothic) and each forming about one third of a homogeneous race. The Saxon came immediately from the southeastern shores and islands of the North Sea, and is of Gothic descent; the Dane from Denmark or the Danish Isles, and is of pure Scandinavian stock; the Norman from Normandy, remotely Gothic, is of direct descent from the Scandinavian race. If this statement be correct the conclusion seems to be inevitable, not that "we are Scandinavians"—as the London Times says—but that we are all deeply Scandinavianized and that there is a preponderance of Scandinavian blood in the English race. If there has been a thorough intermixture of the three racial elements during the past eight hundred years, we may assume that every Kentuckian of Anglo-Virginian stock represents a practically definite ethnical product: Saxon, one third; Scandinavian, two thirds—for all controversial purposes a sufficiently conclusive result. The long-commingled blood of this composite race is, in effect, an adamantine cement, and the racial plexus, fusion, or combination is one and inseparable in every sense. If it were possible to remove either of these constituent elements—the Scandinavian or Saxon—the Kentuckian in his present admirable form would disappear and nothing but a restoration of the racial balance by a reconstitution of the original parts would restore him to the position of primacy assigned him by Mr. Bart Kennedy in his recent contribution to the London Mail. How true, then, in a deep ethnological sense, the familiar legend of our Commonwealth—"United we stand, divided we fall."

Be this as it may, it is desirable to have it understood that so long as the Saxon holds his own (and no more) in the constitution of our common race, there can arise no possible "unpleasantness" between the parts of which it is composed. In that duplex anthropoidal abnormity to which its creator has given a significant binominal appellation—Jekyll and Hyde—some regulative element seems to be lacking. Is it an element of race? The author does not say as much in express terms, but apparently he suggests it in his selection of names. Have we not a Norman in Mr. Jekyll? And a Saxon in Mr. Hyde? That we have not a normal Englishman is quite clear. Is the dominant Scandinavian element short? or has some demoniac "Berserker" blood slipped into the cross?

Subtle and descriminative writers (such as Stevenson and Disraeli) do not express themselves after a careless fashion, as a rule. They mean something, even in the selection of a name.

There is something, too, no doubt, that appeals to the popular imagination merely in a Norman name, and Lord Lytton has cleverly exploited this predilection in many fascinating volumes of historical romance; tales of love and chivalry that in our soft mid-century days had rivaled, and for a time eclipsed, the magical creations of Scott. The later school of Scandinavian writers has not won the Kentuckian from his early love of English and Scottish romance. His conception of the actual Scandinavian—the Scandinavian in the flesh—the Scandinavian of to-day, is still undefined and vague. Until Du Chaillu came he had given the matter but little thought. And, yet, fifty years before—in the busy, brooding twenties—another Frenchman, wandering among the Scandinavians of Gothia, describes their predominant characteristics thus: "Fair hair, blue eyes, a middle stature, light and slim; a physiognomy indicating frankness, gentleness, and a certain sentimental elevation of mind, especially among the fair sex. The people in the other provinces partake of these different physical and moral qualities."

How completely this description by a Frenchman in Scandinavia verifies the casual observation of another Frenchman in Kentucky! Their hospitality, M. Du Chaillu informed us in his charming lecture, was almost without bounds, and at times to a Kentuckian would have been embarrassing in the extreme, as when those snowy-handed hostesses bathed the traveler's feet and tucked him away in bed. But Monsieur seems to have suffered no embarrassment on this account.

Among the population of the Northern provinces of Scandinavia there are men of almost gigantic stature, with dark hair, deep-set eyes, a look somewhat fierce, but full of expression and vivacity. Their muscles are large, firm, and distinct, the bones prominent, the features regular and clear cut. A cheerful temper and "an enterprising disposition" are qualities common to the whole population. A stranger is welcome in all circles. Even in the polar circles the hospitality loses none of its warmth. Probably it is in dispensing their hospitality that their passion for "strong liquor" is most marked. This liquor they drink out of horns; and that is why, said Du Chaillu, convincingly, that we say in Kentucky, "Will you take a horn?" But the Kentuckian seems to derive this peculiarity from every side. "Fill the largest horns," said the Saxon, Cedric, when his slaves were arranging the banquet for his Norman guests.