Wade ( ) is the English name for a common Germanic mythological character who, depending on location, is also known as Vadi (Norse) and Wate (Middle High German).

Overview

The earliest mention occurs in the Old English poem ''

Widsith "Widsith" (, "far-traveller", lit. "wide-journey"), also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the '' Exeter Book'' (''pages 84v–87r''), a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the la ...

''. According to the '' Þiðrekssaga'', he was born between king Wilkinus and a serpent-legged mermaid named Wachilt, a goddess of the sea and sometimes referred to as a "sea witch". His famous son is Wayland, and his grandson Wudga. Though not explicitly given as such, Egil and Slagfin may be Wade's sons, since they are Wayland's brothers according to the

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related ''Prose Edda'', although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse ...

. The medieval English romance about Wade once existed, for

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He ...

alluded to the "Tale of Wade" in one of his works, ''

Troilus and Criseyde ''Troilus and Criseyde'' () is an epic poem by Geoffrey Chaucer which re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Cressida, Criseyde set against a backdrop of war during the siege of Troy. It was written in ''rhyme ro ...

'',''Troilus and Criseyde'': "With sobre chere, although his herte pleyde: / And in the feld he pleyde tho leoun; / He song; she pleyde; he tolde tale of Wade. / But natheles, he japed thus, and pleyde, / And on the walles of the town they pleyde, / From haselwode, there joly Robyn pleyde." and used the phrase "Wade's boat" (), meaning some sort of trickery, in ''The Merchant's Tale''. At the end of the 16th century, the tale and the boat were apparently familiar to an editor of Chaucer's works Thomas Speght, who remarked that Wade's boat bore the name

Guingelot Wade ( ) is the English name for a common Germanic mythological character who, depending on location, is also known as Vadi (Norse) and Wate (Middle High German). Overview The earliest mention occurs in the Old English poem ''Widsith''. According ...

. To the

Angles Angles most commonly refers to: *Angles (tribe), a Germanic-speaking people that took their name from the Angeln cultural region in Germany *Angle, a geometric figure formed by two rays meeting at a common point Angles may also refer to: Places ...

, Wade was the Keeper of the Ford, and acted as both ferryman and protector.

Thidrekssaga

Wade has always had a strong association with the sea or water. In the saga about Wade's family, the ''Vilkina saga'' (also known as the ('' Þiðrekssaga''), it is said that Wade (Vadi; ) was born between King Vilkinus and a mermaid (normalized spelling, ; text: gen. , lit. "sea woman"). Wade first apprenticed his son Wayland () to Mimir, from the age 9 to 12, and later to two dwarfs living in Mount Kallava. He went from his home in Sjoland (Sjælland, i.e.,

Zealand Zealand ( ) is the largest and most populous islands of Denmark, island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size) at 7,031 km2 (2715 sq. mi.). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 Januar ...

) to Grœnasund sound (in Denmark), and finding no ship sailing out, he waded across the sound in waters nine ells deep while carrying his young son Wayland on his shoulder. After the boy studied for two stretches of 12 months, Wade came to fetch his son from the reluctant dwarfs, and was killed in a landslide caused by an earthquake. In the aftermath, the son (Wayland) slays the dwarfs and sets off in a boat he crafts, windowed with glass, reaching the land of King Nidung.

Wade's boat in Chaucer

In Chaucer's ''Merchant's Tale'', the following reference to Wade's boat occurs:

It is clear that, in this context, Wade's boat is being used as a sexual euphemism. However, it is debatable whether this single indirect reference can be taken to demonstrate fertility aspects are a part of his character.

Guingelot

Thomas Speght, an editor of Chaucer's works from the end of 16th century, made a passing remark that "Concerning Wade and his bote called Guingelot, and also his strange exploits in the same, because the matter is long and fabulous, I pass it over" There may have been widespread knowledge of Wade's adventure in his time, but it has not been transmitted to the present day, and subsequent commentators have deplored Speght's omission. "Wingelock" is Skeat's reconstructed Anglicized form of the boat's name. The boat's name closely resembles

Gringolet In Arthurian legend, Gringolet is Sir Gawain's powerful war horse. Derivation of name Israel Gollancz in the early 20th century suggested that Gringolet was derived from the giant Wade's magic boat, Guingelot or ''*Wingolet'' – one form of ...

, the name of

Sir Gawaine Gawain ( ), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and one of the premier Knights of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchm ...

's horse. Gollancz tries to make a reconstruction on the Germanic origins of the name. Still, it is based on a lot of assumptions: that Wade's boat was a winged boat, whose Germanic name was Wingalet or Wingalock, confused with Wade's son Wayland's feathered flying contraption. And while he concedes that the better form of the horse's name is "Guingelot" without the "r", he was dismissive of the view the name was of Celtic in origin, as expressed by

Gaston Paris Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris (; 9 August 1839 – 5 March 1903) was a French literary historian, philologist, and scholar specialized in Romance studies and medieval French literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, ...

Old English fragment of Wade

In the 19th century, three lines from the lost

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

''Tale of Wade'' were found, quoted in a Latin

homily A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered ...

in MS. 255 in the Library of

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Peterhouse has around 300 undergraduate and 175 graduate stud ...

On the same passage, Gollancz gave the following alternate translation: "We may say with ''Wade'' that ll creatures who fellbecame elves or adders or nickors who live in pools; not one became a man except Hildebrand"Note that while Wentersdorf above had interpreted (and interpolated) that these words were spoken "by Wade in the ''Tale''", Gollancz allowed for narrator or any character in the tale entitled ''Wade'' to have spoken, not necessarily Wade himself. The context of the quote has been variously conjectured. Rickert speculated that the situation resembled the scene in the ''

Waldere "Waldere" or "Waldhere" is the conventional title given to two Old English fragments, of around 32 and 31 lines, from a lost epic poem, discovered in 1860 by E. C. Werlauff, Librarian, in the Danish Royal Library at Copenhagen, where it is still ...

'' fragment, "in which Widia, Wate's grandson, and

Hildebrand Hildebrand is a character from Germanic heroic legend. ''Hildebrand'' is the modern German form of the name: in Old High German it is ''Hiltibrant'' and in Old Norse ''Hildibrandr''. The word ''hild'' means "battle" and ''brand'' means "sword" ...

rescue

Theodoric Theodoric is a Germanic given name. First attested as a Gothic name in the 5th century, it became widespread in the Germanic-speaking world, not least due to its most famous bearer, Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Overview The name w ...

from a den of monsters". Karl P. Wentersdorf stated that "Wade is here boasting of his victorious adventures with many kinds of creatures".

Alaric Hall Alaric Hall (born 1979) is a British philologist who is an associate professor of English and former director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. He has, since 2009, been the editor of the academic journal '' Leeds ...

ventures that some antagonistic force has magically "sent" monstrous beings to beset Wade, though he cautions that the fragment is too short for certainty.Gollancz and Wentersdorf evidently identify the verb here as ' "to be" thus translating as "became" or "are", whereas A. Hall construed the verb as "to send".

Folklore

Stones at Mulgrave near

Whitby Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. It is on the Yorkshire Coast at the mouth of the River Esk, North Yorkshire, River Esk and has a maritime, mineral and tourist economy. From the Middle Ages, Whitby ...

were said to be the grave of the dead sea-giant (they were known as ). A tale was told of

Sleights Sleights ( ) is a village in North Yorkshire, England. Located in the Esk Valley in the postal region of Whitby, the village is part of the civil parish of Eskdaleside cum Ugglebarnby. Sleights lies along the steep main A169 road that runs nor ...

Moor in

Eskdale, North Yorkshire Eskdale is a valley running west to east from Westerdale on the North York Moors to Whitby on the Yorkshire Coast of England. Formed during the last major ice age, it has a classic U-shaped valley formation caused by the action of glaciers ca ...

. During the building of

Mulgrave Castle Mulgrave Castle refers to one of three structures on the same property in Lythe, near Whitby, North Yorkshire, England. One of these, known as the "old" or "ancient" castle, was by legend founded by Wade (folklore), Wada, a 6th-century ruler of ...

and

Pickering Castle Pickering Castle is a motte-and-bailey fortification in Pickering, North Yorkshire, England. The original castle was made of timber, and the later stone castle was a temporary prison for Richard II in 1399. Design Pickering Castle was orig ...

, Wade and his wife Bell would throw a hammer to and fro over the hills. (A possible

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

, called " Wade's Causeway" or "Wade's Wife's Causey" locally, was also said to have been built in this manner.) One day Wade's son grew impatient for his milk and hurled a stone that weighed a few tonnes across Eskdale to where his mother was milking her cow at Swarthow on Egton Low Moor. The stone hit Bell with such force that a part of it broke off and could be seen for many years until it was broken up to mend the highways. In local folklore, the Hole of Horcum in North Yorkshire was formed where Wade scooped up earth to throw at his wife.

Legacy

The

Middle-earth Middle-earth is the Setting (narrative), setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the ''Midgard, Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf'' ...

character Eärendil sails the sky in a ship named Vingilot or Wingelot, which scholars note is close to the name of Wade's boat Guingelot. In one of his linguistic writings, ''

Parma Eldalamberon Parma (; ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmesan, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,986 inhabitants as of 2025, ...

'' 15, the creator of Middle-earth,

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

, explicitly noted "Wade = Earendel". Tolkien's biographer

Humphrey Carpenter Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter (29 April 1946 – 4 January 2005) was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster. He is known especially for his biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien and other members of the literary society the Inkli ...

Overview

Thidrekssaga

Wade's boat in Chaucer

Guingelot

Old English fragment of Wade

Folklore

Legacy

Footnotes

Explanatory notes

Citations

References

Further reading