besides , too many `` documents '' we keep are uninformative -- a cumbrous heap of sherds and fragments which can not be read ; or commentaries , made by scribes long dead , on writings which were subsequently lost among the swamps and deserts we have crossed ; or whopping tales the ancient used to weave , which now not even gaffers can believe or myths our senior tribesmen have themselves devised -- of goblins , pixies , spooks and elves -- which scribes with little talent of their own as chroniclers , immortalized in stone .