[4][5][6] Wade first apprenticed his son Wayland (Old Norse: Völundr) to Mimir, from the age 9 to 12, and later to two dwarfs living in Mount Kallava.
[5][9][b] 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.
[5] 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.
[citation needed] 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"[10] 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.
Rickert speculated that the situation resembled the scene in the Waldere fragment, "in which Widia, Wate's grandson, and Hildebrand rescue Theodoric from a den of monsters".
[16] Alaric Hall ventures that some antagonistic force has magically "sent" monstrous beings to beset Wade, though he cautions that the fragment is too short for certainty.
[21][22] In local folklore, the Hole of Horcum in North Yorkshire was formed where Wade scooped up earth to throw at his wife.
In one of his linguistic writings, Parma Eldalamberon 15, the creator of Middle-earth, J. R. R. Tolkien, explicitly noted "Wade = Earendel".