go Charles G. Osgood, 



dew. Similarly appears the bride Thame in the old poem in 



Camden : 



Utque fluit, crines madidos in terga repellit, 

 Reddit et undanti legem formamque capillo. 



(Oxfordshire, p. 385) 



Harrison writes : 'Next unto the Thames we have the Midwaie 

 water, whereof I find two descriptions, the first beginneth thus. 

 The Midwaie water is called in Latine Medevia (as some write) 

 bicause the course thereof is midwaie in a manner between 

 London and . . . Canturburie' (i. 90). 



On her two pretty handmaides did attend, 



One cald the Theise, the other cald the Crane; 



Which on her waited, things amisse to mend, 



And both behind upheld her spredding traine ; 



Under the which her feet appeared plaine, 



Her silver feet, f aire washt against this day : 



And her before there paced pages twaine. 



Both clad in colours like, and like array, 



The Doune and eke the Frith, both which prepard her way.*' 



The Medway, as appears on any map, rises in Surrey, but 

 soon enters Kent, and flows in a direction a little north of east 

 to Yalding-. There it takes a more northerly course towards its 

 estuary and the Thames. The 'Theise,' so spelled in Holinshed, 

 is, of course, the Teise, which approaches the Medway from 

 Goudhurst and the south, and meets it at Yalding. Almost at 

 the same point it is joined by the river Beult, which comes from 

 a southeasterly direction. Thus Holinshed : 'From thence also, 

 and not farre from Yalling [Yalding] it receiveth the Theise 

 (a pretie streame that ariseth about Theise Hirst [Ticehurst] ) & 

 afterward the Gran or Crane, which having his head not farre 

 from Cranbrooke, and meeting with sundrie other rivelets by 

 the waie,' etc. (i. 90). This identifies the Crane with the Beult 

 up as far as Headcorn, about ten miles, and then with the branch 

 now called Hammer Stream, coming northeast from Cranbrook. 

 The name Beult now continues up the main stream towards the 

 southeast to its source not far southwest of Ashford.*® 



The particular office of upholding the bride's train which fell 



^'St. 47. 



"Further proof appears in Harrison's more detailed account of the 



Theise and the Crane, pp. 90-1. 



