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The ancient nations known as the Eastmen, on the east of the Baltic Sea and south of the Gulf of Finland i.e., the Esthonians, Livonians, Lechs, and Lithuanians were, without doubt, partly allied in race to those other old nations and tribes from which the bulk of the settlers in England came. Their ethnological characteristics of the present day, their dialects or language, and their folk-lore, all point to such a connection. As among all pagan Teutonic tribes, water-worship existed among the Eastmen, and still survives in these Baltic countries. In Livonia there is a holy rivulet whose source is in a sacred grove, within whose bounds no one dares to cut a tree. Traces of water-worship also survive among the Lechs. The heathen reverence for wells and fountains was one of the most persistent of Anglo-Saxon superstitions. As it could not be abolished, it was modified by the dedication of wells to Christian saints, and the existence of holy wells in all parts of England at thepresent time is evidence of the ancient reverence for them. The most remarkable custom, however, which the ancient Livonians had in common with the Scandinavians and Germans was a kind of pagan infant baptism, by which water was poured on the head of a new-born child and a name was at the same time given him. Some other remarkable customs which the Old English had in common with Fins and Esthonians were those connected with midsummer. It is scarcely possible for us to realize the full extent to which customs connected with the summer solstice prevailed among our tribal forefathers. Their vitality caused them to survive in England for more than a thousand years. The midsummer fires were lighted in many parts of our country, as they were in numerous districts in Northern Europe. The customs connected with the solstice must have been most strongly adhered to, if they had not indeed originated, in Northern lands. In the North of Britain, as in Finland, Esthonia, and the greater part of Sweden and Norway, the evening gloam of midsummer passes intothe morning dawn and there is no real night. It is from the Fins and Esthonians that we derive one of the most interesting of midsummer legends :

* Wanna Issi had two servants, Koit and Ammarik, and he gave them a torch which Koit should light every morning and Ammarik should extinguish every evening. In order to reward their faithful services, he told them they might be man and wife, but they asked Wanna Issi
that he would allow them to remain for ever bride and bridegroom. Wanna Issi assented, and henceforth Koit handed the torch every evening to Ammarik, and Ammarik took it and extinguished it. Only during four weeks in the summer they remain together at midnight. Koit
hands his dying torch to Ammarik, but Ammarik does not let it die ; she lights it again with her breath. Then their hands are stretched out, and their lips meet, and the blush on the face of Ammarik colours the midnight sky.' 1 The interest of the legend is increased by the meaning of the names. Wanna Issi in Esthonian means the Old Father, Koit means the dawn, and Ammarik means the gloaming, in the language of the common people.

The names Eastmen or Esterlings occur in early records as names referring in a general way to people coming into England from the East. The name Osgotbi, which is mentioned in two Saxon charters as the name of a place in Lincolnshire, now Osgodby, is more definite. The name Osgotecrosse is mentioned in the Hundred Rolls of Yorkshire. The name Osmington, or Osmenton, as that of an old place in Dorset, is mentioned in a Saxon charter and in Domesday Book. The Osgothi could scarcely be other than the Eastern Goths i.e., the Goths on the eastern coast of Sweden, or east of the Vistula, or some people of that race. The purest remnant of the old Gothic stock are the Dalecarlians, sometimes called the Swedish Highlanders, who inhabit the secluded district that stretches westwards from the Silian Lake to the mountains of Norway. They have preserved comparatively unchanged the manners and customs of their Gothic forefathers, and, as Bosworth has pointed out, a peculiarity of the old Gothic language viz., the aspiration of the letters / and w. By this they bear witness in their tongue to the present day of their descent, for these peculiarities are an infallible characteristic of the Mceso-Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and Icelandic languages. The Anglo-Saxon people must have derived this peculiarity from a Northern source, for Bosworth tells us that the Danes and Germans cannot pronounce these aspirated letters.

The history of the Goths and Swedes in the Scandinavian peninsula shows that the latter became the predominant race in the ninth century, and subsequently the two nations were gradually blended into one. During the period when England received so many settlers from the North, we must look for traces of Goths and Swedes under their own tribal or national names. One of these was the tribe known as the Helsingi, whose homeland was the east coast of the Baltic, opposite to Finland, and, as the name Helsingfors shows, must have been connected with the Fins. They were also known as the Heslengi, and under the name Helsings are mentioned in the 'Traveller's Tale' in connection with Wade and his boat, a mythical hero, like Weland the Smith. As a Northern nation their name must have been familiar to the Old English. One of the peculiarities of the old dialect of the Gothic people of Dalecarlia that has survived is the transposition of syllables, as jasel for selja, and lata for tala. The transposition of consonant sounds, as in Helsingi and Heslengi, is well known. The survival of the name of this ancient tribe in those of Helsingborg on the west coast of Sweden, Helsingfors on the coast of Finland, and Helsinore, or Elsinore, on the coast of Zealand, points to the probability of their having been a maritime people, and as such likely to have taken part in maritime expeditions. In England such names as Helsington, near Kendal, and others may possibly refer to settlements of them.

In the account of the early history of the Danes which Saxo gives us, we read of the part which other nations of the Baltic coasts took in the war between them and the Swedes. There were Kurlanders, Esthonians, Livonians, and Slavs, from the eastern or southern coasts of the Baltic Sea engaged in that war, and it is by such alliances rendered probable that in expeditions against England the Danes or Northmen also had Eastmen of these maritime nations acting with them. If alliances could exist in the later Anglo-Saxon period, there is no reason why they might not have existed during the time when the Danes were fighting for new homes and largely settling in England, or that some of these Baltic allied people may not have settled in England with them under the Danish name. Under that name Fins also may have come among other so-called Danes, and there is evidence that a few of them did come. Finland, the most northern of the Baltic countries, inhabited by people allied to, or perhaps even descended in part from, the old Gothic and Scandinavian stock, has been through the range of history, and still is, more advanced in the arts of civilization than its Slavic neighbours, and its geographical position in ancient time brought it into commercial intercourse with Scandinavia and Denmark.

Racially, Pashtun people are classified as Caucasians: from Mediterranean race[47] with Nordic mixture.

Professor B.S. Dhillon states that Jat people are mainly of Indo-Scythian lineage with composite mixing of Sarmatians, Goths & Jutes in History and study of the Jats. Historian James Tod agreed in considering the Jat people to be of Indo-Scythian Stock.[8] Moreover, Sir Alexander Cunningham, Former Director-General of the Archeological Survey of India, considered the Jat people to be the Xanthii (a Scythian tribe) of Scythian stock who he considered very likely called the Zaths (Jats) of early Arab writers.[9] He stated "their name is found in Northern India from the beginning of the Christian era." These people were considered by early Arab writers to have descended from Meds and Zaths.[10][11] Sir Cunningham believes they "were in full possession of the valley of the Indus towards the end of the seventh century.[12] Sir Alexander Cunningham held that the Rajputs belonged to the original Scythian stock, and the Jats to a late wave of immigrants from the north west, of Scythian race.[12]

Orkney Islanders are more closely related to people in Siberia and in Pakistan than those in Africa and the near East, according to a novel method to chart human migrations.

The surprising findings come from a new way to infer ancient human movements from the variation of DNA in people today, conducted by a team from the University of Oxford and University College Cork, which has pioneered a technique that analyses the entire human genetic makeup, or genome.