24 HILLS AND VALES. CHAP. 



Camden, our great leader in British Archaeology, a young student 

 in Magdalen College, and afterwards a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, 

 examined the question of the name of the river, on which, no doubt, 

 he pulled a good oar (1586). Drayton versified the ordinary opinion 

 (1613). Plot speaks familiarly of 'our Isis/ at Hincksey, Oxford, 

 and Ensham, and describes the ill effects of the floods all ( along the 

 Isis from Ensham to Northmoor, Shifford Chimley, and Rothcot/ 

 Still, for all this, it is probable that Isis is a scholarly invention, a 

 fancy of Leland, who, in his poem entitled KTKNEION A2MA a , or 

 Swan Song, has very freely latinized many names of places on the 

 banks of the river. Starting 



' loco citatus 



Isis quo patitur vadum sonorum,' 



he follows ' ripas Isidis virentiores/ and visits ' Isidis insulas 

 amoenas/ Below the confluence ' Tamse ac Isidis/ at Hydropolis 

 (Dorchester), ' Tamesis' is his name for the river. 



Isis had no temple, no worship, and no ' locus standi' or ' fluendi' 

 here, beyond the general meaning of water. 



That the true name of the whole stream is Terns, Tamese, 

 Thames, is supported by a charter granted to Abbot Adhelm of 

 certain lands on the east part of the river ' cujus vocabulum Temis, 

 juxta vadum qui appellatur Summerford/ in Wiltshire; and all 

 our historians who mention the incursions of ^Ethelwold into Wilt- 

 shire, A.D. 905, or of Canute, A.D. 1016, tell us they passed over 

 the Thames at Cricklade b . 



It may be noted as somewhat remarkable that not a single 

 village, ford, bridge, or other remarkable object on the course of 

 the stream above Oxford is characterized as 'on Thames' or 'on 

 Isis.' 



And yet in the earliest mediaeval documents we can refer to, 

 lands are given and boundaries are marked ' juxta fluvium Tamese / 

 and by 'Temese streame.' Eadmund, A.D. 940, notices Wylfing- 

 ford, on ' Temese ; ' in A.D. 942, ^Eppeltune, not ^Esceltune, also called 

 ^Ermundes lea, adjoins the 'Temese;' Eadred, A.D. 955, makes us 

 acquainted with Eoccenforda, and Eoccines, Stanford, and McegiSe- 



a KTKNEION A2MA, Cygnea Cantio. Autore Joanne Lelando, Antiquario. 

 Londini, MDXLV. b Gibson's Camden, i. 194, ed. 1772. 



