Spenser's English Rivers. 77 



This is the Stour in Dorset. Harrison describes it (i. 98) as 

 *a verie faire streame/ and says : *It riseth of six heads,-* 

 whereof three He on the north side of the parke at Sturton within 

 the pale, the other rise without the parke; & of this river the 

 towne and baronie of Sturton dooth take his name as I gesse, for 

 except my memorie do too much faile me, the lord Sturton 

 giveth the six heads of the said water in his amies.' He was 

 right: the arms of Baron Mowbray, Segrave, and Stourton, 

 are to-day 'quarterly of six; ist sable, a bend or, between six 

 fountains.'^^ When Spenser describes Stour 'with terrible 

 aspect, Bearing his sixe deformed heads on hye,' he may be 

 framing a heraldic compliment to the then Lord Stourton.-*^ Or 

 more likely Stour's 'terrible aspect,' as Joyce suggests, is another 

 instance of Spenser's fondness for etymology in proper names. ^' 

 The word 'stour,' meaning variously 'struggle,' 'agony,' 'parox- 

 ysm,' 'terrifying menace,' is a favorite of Spenser's ; he uses it 

 more than fifty times. 



By Blandford plains, which are not especially mentioned in 

 either Holinshed or Camden, Spenser may mean the broad open 

 country, four or five miles above Blandford, traversed by the 

 Stour, the Cale, and the Lydden; or more likely the region just 

 below Blandford, where the valley spreads into a wide plain 

 towards Wimborne Minster, Spenser's Winborne. Leland 

 remarks that 'the soile about Winburn Minstre self is very good 

 for corne, grass and woodde.'-^ 



Next him went Wylibourne with passage sb^e, 

 That of his wylinesse his name doth take, 

 And of him selfe doth name the shire thereby."" 



" Quoted by Dr. Harper, p. 12. , 



'" Debrett's Peerage, s. v. Mowbray. The six springs which form the 

 northern sources of the Stour are all now within Stourton Park (Bae- 

 deker, Great Britain, 1906, p. iii). The modern map shows a string of 

 little ponds lying in the park, along what is called Six Wells Bottom. 



■" This was Edward, ninth baron, who married Frances, daughter of 

 Sir Thomas Tresham. He was of no eminence, but his father was one 

 of the peers who sat at the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. His grand- 

 father had been hanged for murder. 



"Joyce cites 'Tygris fierce' (IV. xi. 20. 9), Wylibourne and Mole 

 (IV. xi. 32), Trent (IV. xi. 35. 8), Stour, and among the Irish rivers 

 'sad Trowis' (41. 7), 'balefull Oure' (44. 5), and 'false Bregog' (VII. vi. 

 40. 4). Perhaps one may add Wharf, Dee, and Humber; see below. 



^"Itinerary, ed. Smith, vol. i, p. 256. 



"St. 32. 



