ituation; whether, for example, phrases like "as I have heard tell,"
"as the book says," "as I find in parchment spell" are rewordings of the
same fact or represent real distinctions.

One group of doubtful references apparently question the reliability of
the written source. In most cases the seeming doubt is probably the
result of awkward phrasing. Statements like "as the story doth us both
write and mean,"[52] "as the book says and true men tell us,"[53] "but
the book us lie,"[54] need have little more significance than the
slightly absurd declaration,

The gospel nul I forsake nought
_Thaugh_ it be written in parchemyn.[55]

Occasional more direct questionings incline one, however, to take the
matter a little more seriously. The translator of a _Canticum de
Creatione_, strangely fabulous in content, presents his material with
the words,

--as we finden in lectrure,
I not whether it be in holy scripture.[56]

The author of one of the legends of the Holy Cross says,

This tale, quether hit be il or gode,
I fande hit writen of the rode.
Mani tellis diverseli,
For thai finde diverse stori.[57]

Capgrave, in his legend of _St. Katherine_, takes issue unmistakably
with his source.

In this reknyng myne auctour & I are too:
ffor he accordeth not wytz cronicles that ben olde,
But diversyth from hem, & that in many thyngis.
There he accordeth, ther I him hold;
And where he diversyth in ordre of theis kyngis,
I leve hym, & to oder mennys rekenyngis
I geve more credens whech be-fore hym and me
Sette alle these men in ordre & degre.[58]

Except when this mistrust is made a justification for divergence from
the original, these comments contribute little to our knowledge of the
medieval translator's methods and need concern us little. More needful
of explanation is the reference which implies that the English writer is
not working from a manuscript, but is reproducing something which he has
heard read or recounted, or which he has read for himself at some time
in the past. How is one to interpret phrases like that which introduces
the story of _Golagros and Gawain_, "as true men me told," or that which
appears at the beginning of _Rauf Coilyear_, "heard I tell"? One
explanation, obviously true in some cases, is that such references are
only conventional. The concluding lines of _Ywain and Gawin_,

Of them no more have I heard tell
Neither in