Medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer twice made references to an early work featuring a Germanic mythological character named Wade. Only three lines survive, discovered buried in a sermon by a late 19th century scholar. There has been much debate over how to translate those fragments ever since, and whether the long-lost work was a monster-filled epic or a chivalric romance. Two Cambridge University scholars now say those lines have been "radically misunderstood" for 130 years, supplying their own translation—and argument in favor of a romance—in a new paper published in the Review of English Studies.

We know such a medieval work once existed because it's referenced in other texts, most notably by Chaucer. He alludes to the "tale of Wade" in his epic poem Troilus and Criseyde and mentions "Wade's boat [boot]" in The Merchant's Tale—part of his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales. A late 16th century editor of Chaucer's works, Thomas Speght, made a passing remark that Wade's boat was named "Guingelot," and that Wade's "strange exploits" were "long and fabulous," but didn't elaborate any further, no doubt assuming the tale was common knowledge and hence not worth retelling. Speght's truncated comment "has often been called the most exasperating note ever written on Chaucer," F.N. Robinson wrote in 1933.

So, the full story has been lost to history, although some remnant details have survived. For instance, there are mentions of Wade in an Old English poem, describing him as the son of a king and a "serpent-legged mermaid." The Poetic Edda mentions Wade's son, Wayland, as well as Wayland's brothers Egil and Slagfin. Wade is also briefly referenced in Malory's Morte D'Arthur and a handful of other texts from around the same period. Fun fact: J.R.R. Tolkien based his Middle-earth character Earendil on Wade; Earendil sails across the sky in a magical ship called Wingelot (or Vingilot).

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