Lesser known than some other beloved tales of larger-than-life heroes such as Gilgamesh, Beowulf and King Arthur, the Song of Wade is a case study in what happens when stories aren’t written down.
The epic was once widely known throughout medieval and Renaissance England — so popular that it was mentioned twice by Chaucer — but today it is mostly forgotten. Only a few phrases survive, and new research is showing how, when so little of a story is preserved, changes in a word or two can alter the entire tale.
The Song of Wade originated in the 12th century, and its hero battled monsters — or so scholars once thought. The only known text was found nearly 130 years ago in a 13th- century Latin sermon, which quoted a bit of the saga in Middle English. In the excerpt, the word “ylues” was originally translated as “elves,” suggesting that Wade’s long-lost saga was teeming with supernatural creatures.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK have challenged that interpretation. They proposed that the word’s meaning was mangled by a scribe’s transcription error, which changed a “w” to a “y.” “Elves” is actually “wolves,” and the term was allegorical, referring to dangerous men, according to the analysis. Another word in the excerpt, translated as “sprites,” should instead be “sea snakes,” moving the story even farther away from the realm of the supernatural, the researchers reported July 15 in The Review of English Studies.
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