read," "in tale as it is told," "as saith the geste," "in rhyme I read," "the prose says," "as mine author doth write," "as it tells in the book," "so saith the French tale," "as saith the Latin." Tags like these are everywhere present, especially in verse, where they must often have proved convenient in eking out the metre. Whether they are to be interpreted literally is hard to determine. The reader of English versions can seldom be certain whether variants on the more ordinary forms are merely stylistic or result from actual differences in situation; 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_,