296 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



race, as in the Pyrenees, where the Gascons of low 

 stature have the stalwart Cantabrians for neighbours 

 and kindred; and again, where the first mentioned 

 form of man is no longer traceable in history, the 

 second is readily detected by names which always 

 have reference to giant statures, as we have already 

 remarked of the Tyrhenians, &c. So again, in the 

 swampy islands (paludes) of ancient Flanders, a small 

 race seems once to have resided under the early protec- 

 tion of the Frieslanders, Vuriesen and Huinen, both 

 denoting giants in the Theotisk dialect of Belgium, 

 as it was spoken in the time of Charlemagne. * 



Huin, pronounced somewhat in English with the 

 sound of oi in coin, gives Hoin, which immediately 

 reminds the reader of the name of the Huns, who are 

 now admitted to have been an Ouralian Finnic people, 

 allied to the Goths, and sweeping with it, in the train 

 of temporary conquest, -several hordes of Mongolians 

 from the east, whose strange aspect misled, or suited the 

 vituperative dismay of Anna Comnena, and the Greek 

 and Roman ecclesiastical writers of the time, who had 

 little better than abusive epithets to oppose to the 

 conquerors. The Ostrogoths were associates of Attila, 



* There is an imperfect vocabulary of this form of the 

 old western Teutonic in Olivarius Vredius, Hist. Comitum 

 Flandrise, together with some fragments of Solomon's Song, 

 &c., in the same. Two centuries after, it was nearly similar 

 to the Anglo-Saxon. The present dialect of Flanders still 

 contains many most ancient Theotisk words disregarded in 

 dictionaries. But the examination of the whole question is 

 well worthy the attention of English Saxon scholars. 



