The Canterbury Tales – The nun’s priest’s tale

A poor, elderly widow lives a simple life in a cottage with her two daughters. Her few possessions include three sows, three cows, a sheep, and some chickens. One chicken, her rooster, is named Chanticleer, which in French means “sings clearly.” He crows the hour more accurately than any church clock. His crest is redder than fine coral, his beak is black as jet, his nails whiter than lilies, and his feathers shine like gold. Understandably, such an attractive cock would have to have many hen-wives, but he loves most truly a hen named Pertelote. She is as lovely as Chanticleer is magnificent.

As Chanticleer, Pertelote, and all of Chanticleer’s hen-wives are roosting one night, Chanticleer has a terrible nightmare about an orange houndlike beast who threatens to kill him while he is in the yard. Pertelote believes the dream to be the result of some physical illness, and she promises him that she will find some purgative herbs. She urges him once more not to believe something as fleeting and illusory as a dream.

In order to convince her that his dream was important, he tells the stories of men who dreamed of murder and then discovered it. Chanticleer cites textual examples of famous dream interpretations to further support his thesis that dreams are portentous.

One day in May, a hungry fox stalks Chanticleer and his wives, watching their every move. The next day, Chanticleer notices the fox while watching a butterfly, and the fox confronts him with dissimulating courtesy, telling the rooster not to be afraid. Chanticleer relishes the fox’s flattery of his singing. He beats his wings with pride, stands on his toes, stretches his neck, closes his eyes, and crows loudly.

The fox reaches out and grabs Chanticleer by the throat, and then slinks away with him back toward the woods. No one is around to witness what has happened. Once Pertelote finds out what has happened, she burns her feathers with grief, and a great wail arises from the henhouse.

The widow and her daughters hear the screeching and spy the fox running away with the rooster. The dogs follow, and pretty soon the whole barnyard joins in. Chanticleer very cleverly suggests that the fox turn and boast to his pursuers. The fox opens his mouth to do so, and Chanticleer flies out of the fox’s mouth and into a high tree.

The fox tries to flatter the bird into coming down, but Chanticleer has learned his lesson. He tells the fox that flattery will work for him no more. The moral of the story, concludes the Nun’s Priest, is never to trust a flatterer.