One of the most famous and elusive literary mysteries in English literature has finally been solved. The Song of Wade — an incredibly popular poem from the Medieval period — was always believed to be a fantastical epic about monsters based on a reading of some of the only surviving lines of the poem. Found in a preacher’s sermon, the lines have always mystified medieval scholars as the fantasy genre didn’t line up with the way the poem and its characters were referenced by famous English writers like Chaucer.
Now, a study published in The Review of English Studies suggests that the lines were misunderstood and that the poem is actually a chivalric romance grounded in reality, not a monster-filled fantasy. Additionally, the sermon that quotes the poem is said to be one of the earliest examples of a preacher using pop culture references to appeal to a broad audience.
“Here we have a late-12th-century sermon deploying a meme from the hit romantic story of the day. This is very early evidence of a preacher weaving pop culture into a sermon to keep his audience hooked,” said Seb Falk, a Fellow at Girton College, in a press release.
Read More: Over 700 Ancient Chinese Poems Describe the Yangtze Finless Porpoises’ Decline
Solving a 130-Year-Old Literary Mystery
Medieval scholar M. R. James first discovered the fragments of the poem in 1896. While looking through Latin sermons, James was shocked to find some lines written in English. After examining the lines, he and another colleague claimed they belonged to the long-lost Song of Wade poem. This original reading was important for the history of medieval literature since the original Song of Wade poem, in its entirety, has never been found.
Now, 130 years later, the sermon has been reevaluated, and a new understanding of the poem has emerged. The new study argues that three key words were misread by James and other scholars alike. This misunderstanding was because of a sloppy scribe whose “y’s” and “w’s” got mixed up. The words in question? Once read as including “elves” and “sprites,” the lines now reference “wolves” and “sea-snakes,” respectively.
“Changing elves to wolves makes a massive difference,” said Falk in the press release. “It shifts this legend away from monsters and giants into the human battles of chivalric rivals.”
A Medieval Meme
The sermon manuscript that contains the poem’s lines is 800 years old and has been revealed, thanks to this new study, to be written by Alexander Neckam, a prominent writer of the late-medieval period.
A reference to a romantic poem is quite surprising to find in a sermon, as many church leaders were concerned about the topics and antics included in the popular genre. Researchers suggest that the inclusion of the poem in the sermon was an attempt to use pop culture to appeal to his audience.
“The sermon itself is really interesting. It’s a creative experiment at a critical moment when preachers were trying to make their sermons accessible and captivating,” said Falk in the press release. “I once went to a wedding where the vicar, hoping to appeal to an audience who he figured didn’t often go to church, quoted the Black Eyed Peas’ song ‘Where is the Love?’ in an obvious attempt to seem cool. Our medieval preacher was trying something similar to grab attention and sound relevant.”
The topic of the sermon was humility, something that medieval theologians were very interested in exploring and that still feels just as relevant now as it was eight centuries ago.
“This sermon still resonates today. It warns us that it’s us, humans, who pose the biggest threat, not monsters,” said James Wade, another Fellow of Girton College, in the press release.
Read More: Was the World’s Most Mysterious Manuscript from the Middle Ages A Hoax?
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
The Review of English Studies. The Lost Song of Wade: Peterhouse 255 Revisited: Peterhouse 255 Revisited
As the marketing coordinator at Discover Magazine, Stephanie Edwards interacts with readers across Discover's social media channels and writes digital content. Offline, she is a contract lecturer in English & Cultural Studies at Lakehead University, teaching courses on everything from professional communication to Taylor Swift, and received her graduate degrees in the same department from McMaster University. You can find more of her science writing in Lab Manager and her short fiction in anthologies and literary magazine across the horror genre.
