Note 547 — Chapter IX · THE GERMAN SIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL EVIDENCE.

The occasional instances in which the patronymic termination is added to the name of a tree or an animal, has led to the hasty conclusion that the Saxons were 'totemists,' and believed themselves descended from trees and animals; e.g. that the Buckings of Bucks thought themselves descendants of the beech tree. The fact that personal names were taken from trees and animals—that one person called himself 'the Beech,' another 'the Wolf'—quite disposes of this argument, for their households would call themselves 'Beechings' and 'Wolfings' in quite a natural course, without any dream of descent from the tree or the animal whose name their father or great-grandfather had borne.