284
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
where it again forms the county-boundary for about one mile.
After a gap of about two miles, it once more forms the county
boundary, continuing to do so, with another gap of about one
mile, at Hallingbury, to its junction with the Lea at Roydon.
The origin of the name Stort is peculiar. One might suppose
it to be derived from the O.E. steort, a tail; for the river has a
wavy course which bears some resemblance to the tail of a
beast when being flourished in the air and it joins the Lea at a
bend of that river shaped somewhat like the rump of a beast.15
Apparently, however, the name Stort is not only not ancient,
but is not the correct name of the river at all; for all the earlier
Essex cartographers (as Saxton, 1576, Harrison, 1587, Speed,
1610, and Overton, 1713), with one exception, call it the Stur or
Stour.16 Norden (1594) alone calls it the "Stort." He says17:
"The Storte devideth it [i.e., Essex] and Hertfordshire,
"passing by Stortford, whereof it taketh name." Later, he gave18
his reasons for this usage, as follows:—
"Some, I take it, in tearming the Stort the Stour, are not
"merely mistaken; for, though the Stoure parteth Suffolk and
"Essex and ariseth at Stourmere, the Stort riseth in Essex,
". . . neere Wenden Lowghes and signifieth Wended
"Water19; and it begins to devide the two Shires betweene
"Stortforde and Farnham, about a mile above Stortford, and
"may, indeed, not amisse be called Stouret, the Lesser or Little
"Stour. And the passage over the river near Waymore Castle
"is called Stowretford, briefly Stortford, whereof the town taketh
"name, and is called Stortford, for Storetford [and so on]."
It is clear from what Norden says that he thought the town
of (Bishop's) Stortford was so called, or ought to have been,
because it was on some river called the Stort. In this, however,
he was mistaken; for, as has been shown, the real name of
that river was the Stour—one of a large number of English rivers
of that name.20 As a result, the river has been called the Stort
ever since—by Morant (1768), Chapman & Andre (1777), and, I
believe, by all other Essex historians and cartographers. As
a matter of fact, there can be no doubt that, as in other cases
15 Johnston suggests (Place-Names of Engl. and Wales, p. 152: 1915) that the name may
be from the cognate Danish styrte, to rush or spring suddenly.
16 William Vallans, in his Tale of Two Swans, written about 1590 (see Leland's itinerary,
v., pp. v.-xviii; 1745), refers to the Stort, but not by name.
17 Description of Essex, 1594, fo. 12 (printed ed., p. 7: 1840).
18 Damp, of Hertfordshire, p. 6 (1598).
19 Norden's statement as to its course is not correct and his derivation of the name
Wenden is absurd
20 See ante, p. 275, and post, p. 300.