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100 word stories: The Canterbury Tales (Part 2)

Here are four more of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales told in exactly 100 words each. For the Prologue and the first three Tales, similarly reduced to bite-sized chunks, see Part 1.

Cook’s Tale

<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cook_from_the_%E2%80%9CEllesmere_Chaucer%E2%80%9D_(Huntington_Library,_San_Marino).jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>

Apprentice Perkin, known as Reveller, drinks, dances and plays dice, but funds his gambling by stealing money from his employer, a grocer. The grocer thinks that he is likely to be a bad influence on the other apprentices and throws him out. Perkin finds new lodgings with a friend who is also a gambler. The friend’s wife runs a shop and substitutes her income with prostitution. And that is all that Chaucer tells us. Did he ever finish the story? Was the manuscript lost? The chances are that the tale, involving gamblers and prostitutes, would have been another saucy one.

Man of Law’s Tale

<a href="http://literature.wikia.com/wiki/The_Man_of_Law%27s_Tale" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>

Constance, daughter of the Christian Emperor of Rome, is shipwrecked in Northumberland and rescued by the constable of a nearby castle and his wife. When the wife is murdered, Constance is tried for the crime but found not guilty and King Alla marries her. As a result of trickery by the king’s mother, Constance and her son are set adrift at sea and end up in the Mediterranean. Her ship is discovered by a Roman senator, who, accompanied by Constance’s son, later meets King Alla who is visiting Rome. Constance is reunited with her father but then returns to England.

Wife of Bath’s Tale

<a href="http://mirino-viewfinder.blogspot.mk/2011/10/wife-of-bath.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>

 

On pain of death, a knight of King Arthur has a year to discover what women most desire and take his answer to the Queen. His time is nearly up when a witch tells him that the answer is “sovereignty in marriage”. The Queen says he’s right, but the witch then demands her side of the bargain, which is that the knight must marry her. The witch says that he can have her foul and old (and loyal) or fair and young (and flighty). He leaves the choice to her and she rewards him by being fair, young and true.

Friar’s Tale

<a href="http://literature.wikia.com/wiki/General_Prologue_to_The_Canterbury_Tales" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>

A corrupt summoner meets a yeoman, who says he is a “fiend from hell”. The summoner reckons he might learn a few new tricks. The yeoman explains that he can only fulfill a curse if someone really means what they say and is not just expressing exasperation. The summoner tries to trick an old woman and take her new pan as well as her money. She tells the summoner to go to hell, so the yeoman asks her if she really means it, which she does unless the summoner repents. He does not, so is promptly whisked off to hell.

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