ing about a tomb, "the French maker saith he saw it with eye."[79]
Sometimes these phrases suggest that metre and rhyme do not always flow
easily for the English writer, and that in such difficulties a stock
space-filler is convenient. Lines like those in Chaucer's _Sir Thopas_,

And so bifel upon a day,
Forsothe _as I you telle may_
Sir Thopas wolde outride,

and

The briddes synge, _it is no nay_,
The sparhauke and the papejay

may easily be paralleled by passages containing references to source.

A good illustration from almost every point of view of the significance
and lack of significance of the appearance of these phrases in a given
context is the version of the Alexander story usually called _The Wars
of Alexander_. The frequent references to source in this romance occur
in sporadic groups. The author begins by putting them in with some
regularity at the beginnings of the _passus_ into which he divides his
narrative, but, as the story progresses, he ceases to do so, perhaps
forgets his first purpose. Sometimes the reference to source suggests
accuracy: "And five and thirty, as I find, were in the river
drowned."[80] "Rhinoceros, as I read, the book them calls."[81] The
strength of some authority is necessary to support the weight of the
incredible marvels which the story-teller recounts. He tells of a valley
full of serpents with crowns on their heads, who fed, "as the prose
tells," on pepper, cloves, and ginger;[82] of enormous crabs with backs,
"as the book says," bigger and harder than any common stone or
cockatrice scales;[83] of the golden image of Xerxes, which on the
approach of Alexander suddenly, "as tells the text," falls to
pieces.[84] He often has recourse to an authority for support when he
takes proper names from the Latin. "Luctus it hight, the lettre and the
line thus it calls."[85] The slayers of Darius are named Besan and
Anabras, "as the book tells."[86] On the other hand, the signification
of the reference in its context can be shown to be very slight. As was
said before, the writer soon forgets to insert it at the beginning of
the new _passus_; there are plenty of marvels without any citation of
authority to add to their credibility; and though the proper name
carries its reference to the Latin, it is usually strangely distorted
from its original form. So far as bearing on the immediate context is
concerned, most of the references to source have little more meanin