medieval
before 1200 CE
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NOTE |
The Tale of Wade, also called The Song of Wade, was a medieval romance widely known and frequently referenced in medieval literature, including a well-known passage in Chaucer. These references indicate that the story was either about a giant or the son of a giant, or were conflated with giant stories of a similar Germanic character, and involved encounters with giants. The tale disappeared sometime after 1600 CE, and all that remains of it are a few lines of Old English verse that M. R. James discovered in a thirteenth century Latin sermon on humility. These lines were published in 1896, but because of the difficulties in the manuscript--aggressive abbreviation of the Latin text and corruptions in the Old English lines, the exact meaning and interpretation have been subject to scholarly debate. In 2025, Seb Falk and James Wade made a new study of the manuscript and reinterpreted the abbreviated Latin and corrupt Old English, producing a new text that clarified (through analyzing alliteration in the Old English and parallel structure with the Latin explanation) that the extant fragments refer to wolves and water-snakes, not to elves and sprites. Below, I have provided the restored Latin and Old English text as well as a selection of early scholarly analysis. (Bracketed translations are my additions for clarity.)
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From the “Humiliamini Sermon” (13th century CE)
(after the reconstruction of Falk and Wade [2025])
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Adam itaque de homine factus est quasi non homo; nec tantum Adam, sed omnes fere fiunt quasi non homines. Itaque dicere possunt cum Wade: ‘Summe sende [ƿ]lues & summe sende nadderes; sum[m]e sende nikeres the bi den ƿater [ƿ]unien. Nister man nenne bute ildebrand onne.’
Similiter, hodie aliqui sunt lupi, utpote potentes tiranni, qui sibi subditorum res si iuste accipere possunt accipiunt; sin autem quocunque modo. Alii imitantur serpentes, quorum triplex est genus. Alii efficiuntur leones, utpote superbi quibus resistit Deus: satis de superbia dictum est in arte predicandi. |
Adam, therefore, was made from a man into something like not a man; and not only Adam, but almost all men become as if they are not human. Therefore, they can say with Wade: ‘“Some are wolves and some are adders; some are water-snakes who dwell by the water. There is no man except Hildebrand alone.”
Likewise, today some are wolves, namely powerful tyrants, who take the goods of their subjects if they can do so justly — and if not, then in any way they can. Others imitate serpents, of which there are three types. Others become lions, namely the proud, against whom God sets Himself; enough has been said about pride in the art of preaching. (my trans.) |
The Quarterly Review 34 (1826)
The local traditions respecting his castle and his grave, indicate that Wade, the Northumbrian chieftain, had been confounded with Vade, the giant of the Wilkina-Saga.
The Academy, February 15, 1896
THE ”TALE OF WADE.”
We have to congratulate Dr. James of King’s College, Cambridge, and Mr. Gollancz of Christ’s, on their discovery of a fragment of the long lost Early-English “Tale of Wade,” which Chaucer makes Pandarus tell Criseyde after their supper together at his house, before he brings Troilus to her. Speght no doubt saw the MS. about 1600, for he says the story was long and fabulous; but since then nothing has been heard of the original. Dr. James, however, while making a catalogue of the MSS. at Peterhouse, came across a short English quotation in an early thirteenth century Latin homily on Humility, and asked Mr. Gollancz to interpret it to him. Mr. Gollancz, to his great joy, found that it was six lines of the lost “Tale of Wade,” and mentioned Wade’s father, the giant Hildebrand, who begat him on a mermaid. The preacher was speaking of the Fall of man, and the evil that followed from it. He said that Adam was turned from a man into a sort of non-man; and not Adam only, but almost all other men too; so that they could say with Wade, “Some are elves and some are adders; some are sprites that dwell by waters: there is no Man, but Hildebrand only.”
“Adam autem, de homine, factus est quasi non homo; nec tantum Adam, sed omnes rere fiunt quasi non homines. Ita quod dicere possunt cum Wade:
“Summe sende ylues
and summe sende nadderes :
summe sende nikeres
the [bi den watere] wunien:
Nister man nenne
bute ildebrand onne.”
The two difficult words are biden patez or pacez in l. 4. Mr. Gollancz at first emended them, from Layamon, into binnen poles, “in pools”; but as that sacrifices the alliteration, Mr. Liddell suggested bi Sen watere, “by the waters,” as the scribe might easily mistake the Anglo-Saxon w (ƿ) for a p, and the long final r with an e twirl for z. Mr. Bradley suggested wades, “fords.”
The “Tale of Wade” must then be much like Layamon’s Brut, and date about 1300 A.D. Its alliteration, though constant, is not regular.
The discovery of this fragment is of the highest interest to all students of our language, literature, and mythology. It now remains for Dr. James and Mr. Gollancz to Wade’s magic boat, “Guingelot,” and his wondrous adventures in; about his mermaid mother, his smith-son Weyland, and his grandson Withga. Like Oliver Twist, we ask for more.
London: Feb. 10, 1896.
At last Friday’s meeting of the Philological Society, Mr. Israel Gollancz communicated and explained the historical “Tale of Wade” just recovered by him. I arrived too late to profit by his paper, but having been favoured with are far more numerous a printed copy of the text I was enabled to suggest some explanations of the few Latin lines introducing the Song. I reproduce them here as given by Mr. Gollancz, the italics denoting his conjectural additions.
“Adam autem de homine factus est quod non homo nec tantum Adam sed omnes fere fiunt quod non homines. Ita quod dicere possunt cum Wade.”
For this surely meaningless version I propose the following reading:
“Adam a deo est factus, quo nominatur homo nec tantum Adam sed omnes fuerunt et fiunt, qui nominantur homines. Itaque dicere possunt [? possum] cum Wade.”
A. N. JANNARIS.
We have to congratulate Dr. James of King’s College, Cambridge, and Mr. Gollancz of Christ’s, on their discovery of a fragment of the long lost Early-English “Tale of Wade,” which Chaucer makes Pandarus tell Criseyde after their supper together at his house, before he brings Troilus to her. Speght no doubt saw the MS. about 1600, for he says the story was long and fabulous; but since then nothing has been heard of the original. Dr. James, however, while making a catalogue of the MSS. at Peterhouse, came across a short English quotation in an early thirteenth century Latin homily on Humility, and asked Mr. Gollancz to interpret it to him. Mr. Gollancz, to his great joy, found that it was six lines of the lost “Tale of Wade,” and mentioned Wade’s father, the giant Hildebrand, who begat him on a mermaid. The preacher was speaking of the Fall of man, and the evil that followed from it. He said that Adam was turned from a man into a sort of non-man; and not Adam only, but almost all other men too; so that they could say with Wade, “Some are elves and some are adders; some are sprites that dwell by waters: there is no Man, but Hildebrand only.”
“Adam autem, de homine, factus est quasi non homo; nec tantum Adam, sed omnes rere fiunt quasi non homines. Ita quod dicere possunt cum Wade:
“Summe sende ylues
and summe sende nadderes :
summe sende nikeres
the [bi den watere] wunien:
Nister man nenne
bute ildebrand onne.”
The two difficult words are biden patez or pacez in l. 4. Mr. Gollancz at first emended them, from Layamon, into binnen poles, “in pools”; but as that sacrifices the alliteration, Mr. Liddell suggested bi Sen watere, “by the waters,” as the scribe might easily mistake the Anglo-Saxon w (ƿ) for a p, and the long final r with an e twirl for z. Mr. Bradley suggested wades, “fords.”
The “Tale of Wade” must then be much like Layamon’s Brut, and date about 1300 A.D. Its alliteration, though constant, is not regular.
The discovery of this fragment is of the highest interest to all students of our language, literature, and mythology. It now remains for Dr. James and Mr. Gollancz to Wade’s magic boat, “Guingelot,” and his wondrous adventures in; about his mermaid mother, his smith-son Weyland, and his grandson Withga. Like Oliver Twist, we ask for more.
London: Feb. 10, 1896.
At last Friday’s meeting of the Philological Society, Mr. Israel Gollancz communicated and explained the historical “Tale of Wade” just recovered by him. I arrived too late to profit by his paper, but having been favoured with are far more numerous a printed copy of the text I was enabled to suggest some explanations of the few Latin lines introducing the Song. I reproduce them here as given by Mr. Gollancz, the italics denoting his conjectural additions.
“Adam autem de homine factus est quod non homo nec tantum Adam sed omnes fere fiunt quod non homines. Ita quod dicere possunt cum Wade.”
For this surely meaningless version I propose the following reading:
“Adam a deo est factus, quo nominatur homo nec tantum Adam sed omnes fuerunt et fiunt, qui nominantur homines. Itaque dicere possunt [? possum] cum Wade.”
A. N. JANNARIS.
The Academy, February 22, 1896
CORRESPONDENCE.
THE SONG OF WADE.
THE SONG OF WADE.
King’s College, Cambridge: Feb. 17, 1896.
In view of Mr. Jannaris’s conjectural reading of the context of the fragment of Wade, so happily recognised and elucidated by Mr. Gollancz ten days ago, I should like to tell the small public who are interested in such matters exactly what the text of the MS. is. I will copy a few of the lines which precede the passage actually in question:
“humiliatus ÷ [=est] primus parens noster qui cum dominus tocius mundi efficeretur ante peccatum et in [underlined for erasure] omnibus que in mundo erint dominaretur post peccatum uero a uili uermiculo scilicet a pulice sine rediculo se minime potuit defendere. Qui similis fuit deo ante peccatum, post peccatum factus ÷ [est] dissimilis, quia hac [?] duce rosa numquam uertitur in saliuncam. Adā iȝ de hoio. fact’ ÷ sq. [quasi] nō bō. n tim adā sȝ oms’f’e fiūt. q. nō homines. Ita q drē possunt cū Wade.”
The sense is: “Adam, from being a man, became, as it were, not a man; nor only Adam, but almost all men become, as it were, not men. So that they can say with Wade,” &c. The writer means that Adam, who was made in the image of God, lost that image—in virtue of which he was truly homo—by his sin; and so do his descendants. And, after the quotation from Wade, he proceeds to say that nowadays some men—e.g., tyrants are wolves, while others imitate serpents, lions, and foxes.
It is clear that the reading offered by your correspondent will not fit with the MS. (which he has had no opportunity of seeing, while I write with it before me); and I will only add that I do not quite see how he proposes to translate his opening words. In the form communicated to the Athenaeum of February 15, these are “Adam a deo humi est factus.” Is this to be rendered: “Adam was made by God on the ground”? This totally fails to give a point d’appui for the quotation from Wade; and yet I cannot see any other possible rendering—not, surely, “Adam was made by God of (= out of) earth”? I notice in the same sermon an anecdote of Hugo de Gurnai being pardoned by a king of France.
MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES.
“humiliatus ÷ [=est] primus parens noster qui cum dominus tocius mundi efficeretur ante peccatum et in [underlined for erasure] omnibus que in mundo erint dominaretur post peccatum uero a uili uermiculo scilicet a pulice sine rediculo se minime potuit defendere. Qui similis fuit deo ante peccatum, post peccatum factus ÷ [est] dissimilis, quia hac [?] duce rosa numquam uertitur in saliuncam. Adā iȝ de hoio. fact’ ÷ sq. [quasi] nō bō. n tim adā sȝ oms’f’e fiūt. q. nō homines. Ita q drē possunt cū Wade.”
The sense is: “Adam, from being a man, became, as it were, not a man; nor only Adam, but almost all men become, as it were, not men. So that they can say with Wade,” &c. The writer means that Adam, who was made in the image of God, lost that image—in virtue of which he was truly homo—by his sin; and so do his descendants. And, after the quotation from Wade, he proceeds to say that nowadays some men—e.g., tyrants are wolves, while others imitate serpents, lions, and foxes.
It is clear that the reading offered by your correspondent will not fit with the MS. (which he has had no opportunity of seeing, while I write with it before me); and I will only add that I do not quite see how he proposes to translate his opening words. In the form communicated to the Athenaeum of February 15, these are “Adam a deo humi est factus.” Is this to be rendered: “Adam was made by God on the ground”? This totally fails to give a point d’appui for the quotation from Wade; and yet I cannot see any other possible rendering—not, surely, “Adam was made by God of (= out of) earth”? I notice in the same sermon an anecdote of Hugo de Gurnai being pardoned by a king of France.
MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES.
Israel Gollancz, “Gringolet, Gawain’s Horse” (1906)
GRINGOLET, GAWAIN’S HORSE.
By Professor I. GOLLANCZ, Litt.D., Secretary of the British Academy.
(A summary of the Paper, kindly prepared by the President, Mr. W. G. Collingwood.)
By Professor I. GOLLANCZ, Litt.D., Secretary of the British Academy.
(A summary of the Paper, kindly prepared by the President, Mr. W. G. Collingwood.)
GRINGOLET, as he figures in mediæval romance, is a fascinating subject, though little is said of him. The bare mention of his name stimulates curiosity. It suggests that once on a time everybody knew all about him; and so we, too, want to know what they knew.
Sir Gawain is a great figure in Arthurian romance. Tennyson’s poem gives but a faint idea of his true character, his magnificence and charm.
“Light was Gawain in life, and light in death
Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man,”
represents a disparaging view in comparison with the truer estimate given of him elsewhere. The fact is that Tennyson took his story from Malory, who drew from sources in which Gawain was belittled, in order to enhance the character of Percival. But in the West of England, especially on the marches of Wales and Cumbria, Gawain was always regarded as the Knight par excellence of the Arthurian court, and the literature about him is of great importance. One of the greatest of mediæval English poets, one of Chaucer’s contemporaries, adorns this tradition; the poem of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is a gem of middle-age romance.
His horse plays no wonderful part, but is always referred to as “Gawain’s Horse, Gringolet.” In French the name is Le Gringolet, with the definite article, as if everybody knew the story about him; and yet no story is to be found. Something there is to be discovered, but not in the romances.
If we group all the romances mentioning Gringolet, we find that the name occurs in the English, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” and a corruption of it in “The Aunters of Arthur at Tarnwathelan,” as Grizel. German it is Gringuljetan; in French usually Gringalet, but occasionally Guingalet; while in Welsh it only occurs in late versions as Keinkalad, and that rarely. The Welsh romance writers seem to avoid the name, giving rise to a suggestion that they regarded it as not Welsh. If it was not Welsh, whence does it come?
One of the most interesting of Northern stories is that of Wade, father of Wayland Smith, and son of Wilkin, the hero of Vilkinasaga, in which we find many stories of Wade added in a late recension. Wade fascinates us, as Gringolet does, by the fact that so little is known of him, and that little whets our curiosity. His name occurs in a series of place-names; in the Traveller’s Song we are told that Wade ruled the Helsings. Chaucer refers to him twice, in one passage saying that the wife of Bath knew everything about his Boat, and in Troilus mentioning quite unexpectedly ”a tale of Wade.” What the tale was we are not informed. Speght, the old commentator, says as regards Wade and his boat and his strange exploits, “because the matter is long and fabulous, I pass it over.” One suspects that he did not know all. Tyrwhitt exclaims against the omission: “Tantamne rem tam negligenter!” [“Is such a thing so carelessly done?”] and modern commentators can only attack Speght for his silence. But evidently in the fourteenth century Chaucer knew or pretended to know-the lost story of Wade and his Boat.
There are many references to the name in Middle English. Wade is “The Wader,” the one who went through the water, carrying on his shoulders the infant Wayland, as St. Christopher carried the infant Christ. But what was his boat?
Chaucer’s passage about the wife of Bath seems to indicate that the boat had already been reduced to a slang phrase: and the name of the boat is preserved for us by Speght in the passage just quoted, which reads in full, “concerning Wade and his boat Gringalet.”
The identity of the names given to Wade’s boat and Gawain’s horse cannot be a chance coincidence; the two must originally have been one. If so, we have in the famous Arthurian romance a distinct influence from Scandinavia.
The Horse of Gawain represents the necessary change from the sea character of the Vilkinasaga to the chivalrous character of the mediæval romance, the ship was the “horse of ocean” both in Anglo-Saxon and in Old Norse. This transition is natural and necessary; we can find further evidence to show that this transition did actually occur.
In the case of the name Gringolet as applied to the horse, we have to note that it is sometimes written without the R, and then usually as Guingalet. Now whenever in old French you get Gu, that sound comes from Teutonic or Germanic sources, and represents W. If the form in Gr be the original one, it points to a Germanic and not a Romance origin. Moreover, in G words passing from Teutonic to Romance languages, a parasitic R frequently arose after the G. To take this story of Wade; the Graelant of Breton legends and French romances is, in all probability, nothing but Wayland:—Völund—Galant—Gralant, with the same parasitic R.
Now if the true name is Guingalet, we may assume without much doubt that it represents a Scandinavian or Germanic Wingalet.
As to the name of the boat, we find it again given as occurring in the North of England in the form Wingalock; so that if the name of the horse was derived from that of the boat, we have materials for tracing the origin of the story.
Vilkinasaga is one of the most interesting versions of the tale of Wade. In it Wilkin appears as a sort of god or demigod; perhaps Wilkin was not his original name, but adapted from the Latin Vulcan, for his son Wayland became the great Smith. In especial Wayland was famous for making boats, and the stories of father and son must have become confused, as often happens in mythology—for example, in the case of Anlaf Cuaran. Even their personalities became mixed in mediæval tradition.
In the Corpus Poeticum Boreale, Wade is stated to be the son of Wayland, while in Vilkinasaga Wayland is certainly the son of Wade. So when we know that Wade carried Wayland over the sea to apprentice him to the dwarfs to learn the smith’s trade, and that Wayland the smith, being lamed in the sinews of his foot, forged for himself a winged garment, with which he flew over the sea; or that he made a wonderful boat, a winged vessel, a marvellous bird; that he was connected with winged maidens, swan-maidens; we see ”Wade’s Boat” came by its name of Wing-something; and how the name originated not in England, but in Scandinavia.
That this was the case is curiously hinted by one old romance, which tells us that Gawain captured his horse from a Saxon king. In that passage the horse is called “un gringalet,” with the indefinite article, as though the name were common and descriptive. Already among the old Normans the boat had become a horse, and at this day among the Normans a fool, a gaunt, silly creature, is called “un gringalet.” This is evidently the source of the well-known proper name, Gringalet, as well as the slang use of the word.
The second part of the original name is less easy to discover. In Magnússon’s index to Heimskringla are many names of boats which might suggest the missing word. Ving is the Danish or Swedish form, from which our “wing” is derived, a Scandinavian, and not an English word. Vinga-lett on the analogy of letti-skip, lettfreggr, lett-fetr, might be suggested, and reference to the termination -lock, found as a variant (cp. Havelock, in its relation to Hamlet) might be adduced.
Of Wade himself we have one curious notice, embedded in an old Latin sermon, which quotes six lines from the lost twelfth or thirteenth century poem, “Ita quod dicere possumus cum Wade:--
Summe sende ylves
and summe sende nadderes.
Summe send nikeres
the binnen wacez wunien.
Nister man nenne
bute ildebrand onne”;
“we may say with Wade that [all creatures who fell] became elves or adders or nickors who live in pools; not one became a man except Hildebrand.” This is the only passage which shows us the story of Hildebrand in English literature, and bears on the genesis of Thiodrekssaga.
Professor Skeat explains the allusion in the tale of the Wife of Bath as meaning that widows, with the aid of Wade’s Boat, could flit about from place to place and carry on their flirtations. But it is more recondite than that, depending on the transition from mythology to folklore, and thence to folk-speech and allusive slang. A further hint may be gathered from Chaucer’s Troilus; it was Pandarus who told “a tale of Wade,” an amorous story, parallel to the tale of Graelant, —the stern Northern mythology of the sea adapted to amorous France.
Gaston Paris, the greatest among students of mediæval romance, considered that the name of Gringolet was of Celtic origin, though unexplained. The fact, however, remains that Gringolet in its Welsh form is rare; only occurring in a late twelfth or thirteenth century list of Arthurian horses, and in the strange form Keinkalad. If it were Welsh in origin it would surely be a more integral part of the legends; while on the other hand we have seen its close analogy to the name of Wade’s boat, and the reasons for considering that Gawain’s horse was really a form of the boat in Vilkinasaga, and a loan to British folklore from the Vikings.
Sir Gawain is a great figure in Arthurian romance. Tennyson’s poem gives but a faint idea of his true character, his magnificence and charm.
“Light was Gawain in life, and light in death
Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man,”
represents a disparaging view in comparison with the truer estimate given of him elsewhere. The fact is that Tennyson took his story from Malory, who drew from sources in which Gawain was belittled, in order to enhance the character of Percival. But in the West of England, especially on the marches of Wales and Cumbria, Gawain was always regarded as the Knight par excellence of the Arthurian court, and the literature about him is of great importance. One of the greatest of mediæval English poets, one of Chaucer’s contemporaries, adorns this tradition; the poem of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is a gem of middle-age romance.
His horse plays no wonderful part, but is always referred to as “Gawain’s Horse, Gringolet.” In French the name is Le Gringolet, with the definite article, as if everybody knew the story about him; and yet no story is to be found. Something there is to be discovered, but not in the romances.
If we group all the romances mentioning Gringolet, we find that the name occurs in the English, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” and a corruption of it in “The Aunters of Arthur at Tarnwathelan,” as Grizel. German it is Gringuljetan; in French usually Gringalet, but occasionally Guingalet; while in Welsh it only occurs in late versions as Keinkalad, and that rarely. The Welsh romance writers seem to avoid the name, giving rise to a suggestion that they regarded it as not Welsh. If it was not Welsh, whence does it come?
One of the most interesting of Northern stories is that of Wade, father of Wayland Smith, and son of Wilkin, the hero of Vilkinasaga, in which we find many stories of Wade added in a late recension. Wade fascinates us, as Gringolet does, by the fact that so little is known of him, and that little whets our curiosity. His name occurs in a series of place-names; in the Traveller’s Song we are told that Wade ruled the Helsings. Chaucer refers to him twice, in one passage saying that the wife of Bath knew everything about his Boat, and in Troilus mentioning quite unexpectedly ”a tale of Wade.” What the tale was we are not informed. Speght, the old commentator, says as regards Wade and his boat and his strange exploits, “because the matter is long and fabulous, I pass it over.” One suspects that he did not know all. Tyrwhitt exclaims against the omission: “Tantamne rem tam negligenter!” [“Is such a thing so carelessly done?”] and modern commentators can only attack Speght for his silence. But evidently in the fourteenth century Chaucer knew or pretended to know-the lost story of Wade and his Boat.
There are many references to the name in Middle English. Wade is “The Wader,” the one who went through the water, carrying on his shoulders the infant Wayland, as St. Christopher carried the infant Christ. But what was his boat?
Chaucer’s passage about the wife of Bath seems to indicate that the boat had already been reduced to a slang phrase: and the name of the boat is preserved for us by Speght in the passage just quoted, which reads in full, “concerning Wade and his boat Gringalet.”
The identity of the names given to Wade’s boat and Gawain’s horse cannot be a chance coincidence; the two must originally have been one. If so, we have in the famous Arthurian romance a distinct influence from Scandinavia.
The Horse of Gawain represents the necessary change from the sea character of the Vilkinasaga to the chivalrous character of the mediæval romance, the ship was the “horse of ocean” both in Anglo-Saxon and in Old Norse. This transition is natural and necessary; we can find further evidence to show that this transition did actually occur.
In the case of the name Gringolet as applied to the horse, we have to note that it is sometimes written without the R, and then usually as Guingalet. Now whenever in old French you get Gu, that sound comes from Teutonic or Germanic sources, and represents W. If the form in Gr be the original one, it points to a Germanic and not a Romance origin. Moreover, in G words passing from Teutonic to Romance languages, a parasitic R frequently arose after the G. To take this story of Wade; the Graelant of Breton legends and French romances is, in all probability, nothing but Wayland:—Völund—Galant—Gralant, with the same parasitic R.
Now if the true name is Guingalet, we may assume without much doubt that it represents a Scandinavian or Germanic Wingalet.
As to the name of the boat, we find it again given as occurring in the North of England in the form Wingalock; so that if the name of the horse was derived from that of the boat, we have materials for tracing the origin of the story.
Vilkinasaga is one of the most interesting versions of the tale of Wade. In it Wilkin appears as a sort of god or demigod; perhaps Wilkin was not his original name, but adapted from the Latin Vulcan, for his son Wayland became the great Smith. In especial Wayland was famous for making boats, and the stories of father and son must have become confused, as often happens in mythology—for example, in the case of Anlaf Cuaran. Even their personalities became mixed in mediæval tradition.
In the Corpus Poeticum Boreale, Wade is stated to be the son of Wayland, while in Vilkinasaga Wayland is certainly the son of Wade. So when we know that Wade carried Wayland over the sea to apprentice him to the dwarfs to learn the smith’s trade, and that Wayland the smith, being lamed in the sinews of his foot, forged for himself a winged garment, with which he flew over the sea; or that he made a wonderful boat, a winged vessel, a marvellous bird; that he was connected with winged maidens, swan-maidens; we see ”Wade’s Boat” came by its name of Wing-something; and how the name originated not in England, but in Scandinavia.
That this was the case is curiously hinted by one old romance, which tells us that Gawain captured his horse from a Saxon king. In that passage the horse is called “un gringalet,” with the indefinite article, as though the name were common and descriptive. Already among the old Normans the boat had become a horse, and at this day among the Normans a fool, a gaunt, silly creature, is called “un gringalet.” This is evidently the source of the well-known proper name, Gringalet, as well as the slang use of the word.
The second part of the original name is less easy to discover. In Magnússon’s index to Heimskringla are many names of boats which might suggest the missing word. Ving is the Danish or Swedish form, from which our “wing” is derived, a Scandinavian, and not an English word. Vinga-lett on the analogy of letti-skip, lettfreggr, lett-fetr, might be suggested, and reference to the termination -lock, found as a variant (cp. Havelock, in its relation to Hamlet) might be adduced.
Of Wade himself we have one curious notice, embedded in an old Latin sermon, which quotes six lines from the lost twelfth or thirteenth century poem, “Ita quod dicere possumus cum Wade:--
Summe sende ylves
and summe sende nadderes.
Summe send nikeres
the binnen wacez wunien.
Nister man nenne
bute ildebrand onne”;
“we may say with Wade that [all creatures who fell] became elves or adders or nickors who live in pools; not one became a man except Hildebrand.” This is the only passage which shows us the story of Hildebrand in English literature, and bears on the genesis of Thiodrekssaga.
Professor Skeat explains the allusion in the tale of the Wife of Bath as meaning that widows, with the aid of Wade’s Boat, could flit about from place to place and carry on their flirtations. But it is more recondite than that, depending on the transition from mythology to folklore, and thence to folk-speech and allusive slang. A further hint may be gathered from Chaucer’s Troilus; it was Pandarus who told “a tale of Wade,” an amorous story, parallel to the tale of Graelant, —the stern Northern mythology of the sea adapted to amorous France.
Gaston Paris, the greatest among students of mediæval romance, considered that the name of Gringolet was of Celtic origin, though unexplained. The fact, however, remains that Gringolet in its Welsh form is rare; only occurring in a late twelfth or thirteenth century list of Arthurian horses, and in the strange form Keinkalad. If it were Welsh in origin it would surely be a more integral part of the legends; while on the other hand we have seen its close analogy to the name of Wade’s boat, and the reasons for considering that Gawain’s horse was really a form of the boat in Vilkinasaga, and a loan to British folklore from the Vikings.
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After discussion, Mr. Gollancz, replying to Mr. Collingwood, said that the name of the horse in Grettissaga, “Keingala,” was not easy to trace, for the story of Grettir, as we have it, is of late and mixed origin. The wings in pre-Norman sculpture in the North of England, and other hints of the Wayland myth on the monuments, certainly show the persistence of the legend, which was the Northern form of the story of Icarus and Dædalus, a smith story. Why smiths were always lame, as Miss Hull asked, he could only explain by saying that it was their nature! As to the parallel transition from the boat of Mannanan Mac Lir to the magic steed of Ossian, which brought the Celtic heroes to Paradise, he thought that the Arthurian legends were of course greatly influenced by Celtic mythology. Gawain, however, had been unkindly treated by English romancers of the Southeast; but in Welsh tradition he was “the hawk of the May morning,” “the knight of ladies,” “Gawain the Good,” exalted even above Arthur, and all along the Welsh marches long considered as the noblest figure in the group. As Mr. Collingwood had pointed out, the name remained popular in Cumbria, and the legend of Tarn Wadling (near Carlisle) survived the Middle Ages. To Dr. Pernet the lecturer answered that though “Gringolet” is now in general use, it is Norman in origin, and thanked him for the apt analogy of the transition from old German hross to modern French rosse. Replying to Colonel Hobart, he said that the intrusive R is common in Icelandic and in some English dialects, it need present no difficulty. Indeed he sometimes thought that part of the confusion in the subject came from the blending of the Scandinavian story with the French and Celtic legends of “Galwain,” just as Wayland and Wade had become interchanged. In answer to Mr. Norris’s suggestion that the last syllable in vinga-lett might be lid, as in “Sumarlid,” Mr. Gollancz did not think the change phonetically possible, and preferred to leave that part of the problem still unsolved.
Source: I. Gollancz, “Gringolet, Gawain’s Horse,” Saga-Book, 5 (1906–1907), 104–09.
R. W. Chambers, Widsith (1912)
The tale of Wade.
Wada [weold] Hælsingum.
Wada [weold] Hælsingum.
Perhaps Wade was originally a sea-giant, dreaded and honoured by the coast tribes of the North Sea and the Baltic. That he retained something of this character in these regions till the thirteenth century is proved by the references to him in the Thidreks saga, where the giant Vathe is the offspring of King Villcinus and of a sea-wife. The saga has, however, little to tell concerning him; he owes his place in the story to his being the father of the more interesting Weland: a connection which is no doubt late. On one occasion “a kind of heathen Christopher” he wades over the swollen sound with his son upon his shoulder. Vathe is finally overwhelmed in an avalanche. Perhaps we may see in this a survival of some legend of the storm-divinity.
We meet with Wade again in a High-German disguise in the poem of Kudrun, almost contemporary with the Thidreks saga. Here he has been brought into subjection to the laws of chivalry, and becomes the type of the faithful retainer, but his old aquatic habits peep forth. To him the ways of the sea and the tales of the seas are known: and when the angel tells Kudrun that her deliverers are at hand, it is Wade who steers the fleet which brings them:
We meet with Wade again in a High-German disguise in the poem of Kudrun, almost contemporary with the Thidreks saga. Here he has been brought into subjection to the laws of chivalry, and becomes the type of the faithful retainer, but his old aquatic habits peep forth. To him the ways of the sea and the tales of the seas are known: and when the angel tells Kudrun that her deliverers are at hand, it is Wade who steers the fleet which brings them:
dir kumet in ditze lant
Wate von den Stürmen; der hât an sîner hant
ein starkez stiurruoder.
[ … there comes into this land
Wade from the storms; he has in his hand
a strong rudder.]
In England the memory of Wade lived longer than that of any of the old heroes of song, Weland only excepted. The references to him by the two greatest writers of the Middle English period have kept his name from being ever quite forgotten. In Chaucer’s Troilus a “tale of Wade” helps to while away an evening, when Pandare entertains Criseyde:
And after souper gonnen they to ryse
At ese wel, with hertes fresshe and glade,
And wel was him that coulde best devyse
To lyken hir, or that hir laughen made.
He song; she pleyde; he tolde tale of Wade.
[And after supper they began to rise,
At ease, feeling well, with hearts fresh and glad;
And lucky was the one who could best devise
How to please her, or what would make her laugh.
He sang; she played; he told the tale of Wade.]
Elsewhere Chaucer refers to Wade’s boat.
In Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur the damsel Linet says to Sir Gareth of Orkney:
In Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur the damsel Linet says to Sir Gareth of Orkney:
For were thou as wight as ever was Wade, or Launcelot, Tristram, or the good knight Sir Lamorake, thou shalt not pass a pass here, that is called the pass perilous.
References in less famous works are fairly frequent. Sir Bevis of Hamton classes Wade amongst the few champions of romance who have slain their dragons.
[Swich bataile dede neuer non
Cristene man of flesch ne bon
Of a dragoun þer beside
Þat Beues slouȝ þer in þat tide
Saue sire Launcelet de Lake;
He fauȝt wiþ a fur drake,
And Wade dede also,
& neuer kniȝtes boute þai to.
Gij a Warwik, ich vnderstonde,
Slouȝ a dragoun in Norþhomberlonde.]
[Such a battle was never done
By any Christian man of flesh and bone
As with a dragon there beside
That Bevis slew there at that time--
Except Sir Launcelot of the Lake;
He fought with a fire-dragon.
And Wade did also,
And no other knights but those two.
Guy of Warwick, I understand,
Slew a dragon in Northumberland.]
We shall probably be right if we regard this dragon episode as a later development of his story.
In the alliterative Morte Arthure the “wery wafulle wedowe “ warns King Arthur that it is useless for him to attack the giant:
In the alliterative Morte Arthure the “wery wafulle wedowe “ warns King Arthur that it is useless for him to attack the giant:
Ware thow wyghttere thane Wade or Wawayne owthire,
Thow wynnys no wyrchipe, I warne the before.
[Even if you were braver than either Wade or Gawain,
You will win no honor, I warn you in advance.]
Even in 1598, when Speght edited Chaucer, the name of Wade’s boat was remembered:
Concerning Wade and his bote called Guingelot, as also his strange exploits in the same, because the matter is long and fabulous, I passe it over.
Speght has been denounced by Tyrwhitts, and by Sir Walter Scott, for having “to the great prejudice of posterity” given us only this tantalizing reference. But probably he knew little of the story. He wrote more than a century after the latest of the references given above, and it is unlikely that, except locally, any tale of Wade was remembered, in the year 1600. To the antiquary Leland, much earlier, the name Wade had no meaning. Leland notes that at Mulgrave, near Whitby, are “certen stones communely caullid Waddes Grave, whom the people there say to have bene a Gigant.” Camden also, a contemporary of Speght, visited Wade’s grave, but the name does not seem to have awakened in him any recollection of old tradition. He connects the eleven foot high giant with the historic Northumbrian chief named Wade. Finally, Sir Francis Kynaston, in his commentary upon Troilus (c. 1635), professed to give an account of Wade, which shows that he could find nothing to add to what Speght had condescended to state:
Tale of Wade, &c. Chaucer means a ridiculous romance, as if he had told a story of Robin Hood, for in his time there was a foolish fabulous Legend of one Wade & his boate Guingelot, wherein he did many strange things & had many wonderfull adventures; not much unlike that man and his boate in our time, who layed a wager, that he never going out of his boate, & without any other helpe but himselfe, he would in a certaine number of dayes go by land & by water from Abington to London, & in his passage would go over the top of a square Steepel by the way, which thing he performed & wonne his wager.
It is evident, then, that by the early seventeenth century the tale of Wade was forgotten.
Locally, Wade’s name was remembered much later. At Mulgrave the grave of the giant Wade was shown, almost down to our days. Also, says an antiquary of the late eighteenth century:
Locally, Wade’s name was remembered much later. At Mulgrave the grave of the giant Wade was shown, almost down to our days. Also, says an antiquary of the late eighteenth century:
The common people...shew...a huge bone which they affirm to be one of the ribs of Bell Wade’s cow; believing her, as well as her owner, to have been of an enormous size. But to me this appears a mere fiction; for the bone now preserved there has doubtless belonged to some fish, probably a whale; though such a suggestion is by no means agreeable to its present possessors.
The name of “Wade’s causey” was also given to a disused Roman road which leads from it [the village of Dunsley, on the sea coast] many miles over these vast moors and morasses toward York. This extraordinary road, at present disused, is called by the country-people Wade’s causey, concerning which they relate a ridiculous traditional story of Wade’s wife, and her cow. The fabulous story is, that Wade had a cow, which his wife was obliged to milk at a great distance, on these moors; for her better convenience he made this causeway, and she helped him by bringing great quantities of stones in her apron; but the strings breaking once with the weight, as well they might, a huge heap (about twenty cartload) is shown that dropped from her.
Such is the last echo, on the Yorkshire coast, of the tales of the dread sea giant which the conquerors had brought with them across the North Sea thirteen centuries before.
The name Wade was frequently borne in Old English times by historic chiefs. We cannot therefore feel sure that the many places associated with the name all point to a localization of stories of the mythical hero. It is particularly tempting to assume this, however, when we find the name associated with mills and bridges.
Of the lost Tale of Wade six lines were discovered by Dr Montague R. James in a Latin sermon on Humility, of the early thirteenth century. As emended and explained by Prof. Gollancz, they run:
Such is the last echo, on the Yorkshire coast, of the tales of the dread sea giant which the conquerors had brought with them across the North Sea thirteen centuries before.
The name Wade was frequently borne in Old English times by historic chiefs. We cannot therefore feel sure that the many places associated with the name all point to a localization of stories of the mythical hero. It is particularly tempting to assume this, however, when we find the name associated with mills and bridges.
Of the lost Tale of Wade six lines were discovered by Dr Montague R. James in a Latin sermon on Humility, of the early thirteenth century. As emended and explained by Prof. Gollancz, they run:
Ita quod dicere possunt cum Wade:
Summe sende ylues
and summe sende nadderes:
summe sende nikeres
the bi den watere wunien.
Nister man nen ne
bute Ilde brand onne.
The allusion to nickers dwelling by the waters seems appropriate to the tale of Wade. But this reading is conjectural, and the lines still leave us in the dark as to Wade and his boat Guingelot.
Perhaps more help is to be got from the story of Gado, told us by Walter Map.
Perhaps more help is to be got from the story of Gado, told us by Walter Map.
Gado was the son of the king of the Vandals; but, from love of adventure, left his home when a boy. A mighty hunter, versed in all knowledge, he wandered through the world redressing wrongs, and at last he came to the court of King Offa, the builder of the Welsh dyke. Offa, to his sorrow, wedded the daughter of the Roman emperor; his covetous Roman guests, returning home, urged the emperor to make Offa tributary, and were deterred from attacking him only by fear of his friend Gado. However, when Gado was called off, to right wrongs in the furthest Indies, and had been dismissed by Offa with rich gifts, the Romans, with a mighty army, attacked Offa unawares. But Gado, having righted things in India, was returning to his native land: when against his wish, his ship was carried to England, near Colchester. There Offa had come to meet the Romans, who had just landed, and who had refused his terms of peace. After greeting Offa, Gado, clothed in his wonted glorious vestments, and accompanied by a hundred chosen knights (for he always led with him at least a hundred), went to the Roman quarters to act as mediator, but was repulsed. So Gado arrayed the English forces, placing Offa with the main body in the market place of the town, the king’s nephew Suanus with a chosen five hundred at one exposed gate, and himself, with his hundred, at the next.
Fearing Gado, the Romans concentrated all their attacks upon Suanus, who, at the third assault, had to appeal to Gado for help. But Gado refused, and Suanus was preparing to sell his life dearly, when Gado commanded him to draw back. He obeyed: the enemy rushed in, and were met by Offa in the market place, whilst their retreat was cut off by Gado from behind. Thus caught, the Romans were mowed down, till quarter was offered to the survivors, who returned to Rome with their dead.
Map has rationalized the story, and has toned down, without obliterating, its supernatural features. The boat which enables Gado to go to the uttermost Indies, to accomplish his adventure there, and to return in time to thwart the emperor, a boat which carries him magically to the spot where there is work for him to do, can be no other than Guingelot. Gado’s wisdom, and his white hair (characteristics which are also preserved in Kudrun), are probably derived from the original figure of the dreaded old man of the sea. In other points the coincidence between the Anglo-Latin and the High German story may be accidental. The glorious clothing of Gado and his companions astonishes the emperor and his knights; we are reminded of the magnificence of Wate’s companions at the Irish court; when Gado takes over the command from king Offa and directs all the fighting around the town gates, we are reminded of the similar commanding part assumed by Wate at the end of the Kudrun story.
That Gado should be the son of a Vandal king carries us back to the flourishing days of the Old English heroic story, when the Vandal name was clearly remembered; this feature would hardly have been invented later. It was probably the exigencies of alliteration that originally caused a Vandal king to be chosen for Wade’s father, just as in the Thidreks saga he is made the son of king Villcinus.
Putting together, then, the accounts of Wate and Vathe, of Wade and of Gado, we find these common characteristics, which we may assume belonged to their ancient prototype, Wada of the Hælsingas:
(1) Power over the sea.
(2) Extraordinary strength-often typified by superhuman
stature.
(3) The use of these powers to help those whom Wade favours. Not that he is necessarily gracious or benevolent. Originally he was perhaps the reverse. But probably he grew out of the figure, not of a historic chief, but of a supernatural power, who had no story all his own, and who interested mortal men only when he interfered in their concerns. Hence he is essentially a helper in time of need: and we may be fairly confident that already in the oldest lays he possessed this character.
That Gado should be the son of a Vandal king carries us back to the flourishing days of the Old English heroic story, when the Vandal name was clearly remembered; this feature would hardly have been invented later. It was probably the exigencies of alliteration that originally caused a Vandal king to be chosen for Wade’s father, just as in the Thidreks saga he is made the son of king Villcinus.
Putting together, then, the accounts of Wate and Vathe, of Wade and of Gado, we find these common characteristics, which we may assume belonged to their ancient prototype, Wada of the Hælsingas:
(1) Power over the sea.
(2) Extraordinary strength-often typified by superhuman
stature.
(3) The use of these powers to help those whom Wade favours. Not that he is necessarily gracious or benevolent. Originally he was perhaps the reverse. But probably he grew out of the figure, not of a historic chief, but of a supernatural power, who had no story all his own, and who interested mortal men only when he interfered in their concerns. Hence he is essentially a helper in time of need: and we may be fairly confident that already in the oldest lays he possessed this character.
Source: R. W. Chambers, Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), 95-100; I added the quote from Bevis for clarity.
