Medieval Revelations: A Lost English Tale, a Chaucerian Mystery, and the Birth of a Meme

Illustration from the early 14th-century chivalric romance, the Prose Lancelot

A centuries-old literary mystery that has baffled scholars — including the renowned M.R. James — for over 130 years has finally been unraveled.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge now believe the long-lost Song of Wade, once thought to be a monster-filled epic, was actually a chivalric romance — a reinterpretation that reshapes our understanding of a key piece of English cultural heritage.

This discovery not only resolves one of the most puzzling references in Chaucer’s writings but also reveals a fascinating instance of a medieval preacher drawing on popular culture in a sermon — an unusually rare glimpse into how stories circulated and resonated in everyday life.

The breakthrough, published in The Review of English Studies, hinges on a single key detail: the manuscript refers to “wolves,” not “elves,” as previously believed.

Dr. James Wade and Dr. Seb Falk, both of Girton College, Cambridge, argue that the literary fragment — first uncovered by M.R. James in 1896 — has been deeply misunderstood for over a century.

“Swapping elves for wolves changes everything,” says Seb Falk. “It transforms the story from one about monsters and giants into a tale of human conflict and chivalric rivalry.”

Back in the University Library at Cambridge, Falk and James Wade — long-time research partners and medieval detectives — are poring over the manuscript they've spent years trying to decode, now with fresh eyes.

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“It never quite made sense why Chaucer would mention Wade in a context of courtly drama,” Wade adds. “But this discovery finally connects the dots — it all fits now.”

“What we’re seeing here is a late 12th-century preacher using a kind of medieval meme from a popular romantic tale of the time,” says Seb Falk. “It’s one of the earliest examples we have of a sermon drawing on contemporary pop culture to keep an audience engaged.”

James Wade adds, “Church leaders often criticized chivalric romances for promoting themes like adultery, violence, and scandal — so it’s pretty remarkable to find a preacher slipping that kind of 'adult content' into a sermon.”

For the first time, the researchers have also identified the likely author of the Humiliamini sermon: Alexander Neckam (1157–1217), a major literary figure of the late medieval period. The 800-year-old sermon is preserved in MS 255, part of a medieval collection held by Peterhouse, Cambridge.

Back in 1896, M. R. James was browsing through Latin sermons in the Perne Library at Peterhouse, Cambridge, when he stumbled upon something unexpected — a few passages written in English. Intrigued, he reached out to fellow Cambridge scholar Israel Gollancz.

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Together, they concluded that the lines were fragments from a long-lost 12th-century romantic poem, which they named the Song of Wade. James had planned to publish further analysis, but that follow-up never materialized.

For nearly 130 years, no new clues surfaced. Over the decades, scholars have tried to make sense of the mysterious reference to Wade in the sermon, piecing together theories about what the full story might have been.

“A lot of brilliant minds have agonized over just a few lines — trying to decode the spelling, punctuation, translation, and meaning,” says James Wade.

The researchers argue that three words have been misread by scholars, because of misleading errors made by a scribe who transcribed the sermon. Most problematically, the letters ‘y’ and ‘w’ became muddled. Correcting these and other errors transforms the translated text from:

‘Some are elves and some are adders; some are sprites that dwell by waters: there is no man, but Hildebrand only.’

to:

‘Thus they can say, with Wade: ‘Some are wolves and some are adders; some are sea-snakes that dwell by the water. There is no man at all but Hildebrand.’

Hildebrand was Wade’s supposed father. While some folk-legends and epics refer to Hildebrand as a giant, if the Wade legend was a chivalric romance, as this study argues, Hildebrand was probably understood to be a normal man.