of the Anglo-Saxon clans bore names implying their descent from such
plants or animals. Thus a charter mentions the Æscings, or sons of the
ash, in Surrey; another refers to the Earnings, or sons of the eagle
(earn); a third to the Heartings, or sons of the hart; a fourth to the
Wylfings, or sons of the wolf; and a fifth to the Thornings, or sons of
the thorn. The oak has left traces of his descendants at Oakington, in
Cambridge: the birch, at Birchington, in Kent; the boar (Eofer) at
Evringham, in Yorkshire; the hawk, at Hawkinge, in Kent; the horse, at
Horsington, in Lincolnshire; the raven, at Raveningham, in Norfolk; the
sun, at Sunning, in Berks; and the serpent (Wyrm), at Wormingford,
Worminghall, and Wormington, in Essex, Bucks, and Gloucester,
respectively. Every one of these objects is a common and well-known
totem amongst savage tribes; and the inference that at some earlier
period the Anglo-Saxons had been Totemists is almost irresistible.

Moreover, it is an ascertained fact that the custom of exogamy (marriage
by capture outside the tribe), and of counting kindred on the female
side alone, accompanies the low stage of culture with which Totemism is
usually associated. We know also that this method of reckoning
relationship obtained amongst certain Aryan tribes, such as the Picts.
Traces of the ceremonial form of marriage by capture survived in England
to a late date in the middle ages; and therefore the custom of exogamy,
upon which the ceremony is based, must probably have existed amongst the
English themselves at some earlier period. Even in the first historical
age, a conquered king generally gave his daughter in marriage to his
conqueror, as a mark of submission, which is a relic of the same custom.
Now, if members of the various tribes–Jutes, English, and Saxons,–used
at one time habitually to intermarry with one another, and to give their
children the clan-name of the father, it would follow that persons
bearing the same clan-name would appear in all the tribes. Such we find