The Reeve’s Tale

In a town called Trumpington ,there was a dishonest miller named Symkyn,who lived with his wife,who is the daughter of the local clergyman, a twenty-yearold daughter, and a six-month-old son.

He likes to fight, carries multiple weapons, and enjoys wrestling. Most people in the town avoid conflict with him, even though he regularly cheats his customers by stealing corn from them or “padding” their sacks of flour with less-expensive substances.

One of his client is a college called Soller Hall at Cambridge.

One day the manciple of the college became sick so the miller took advantage of this to steal the grain.

Two students there, Aleyn and John, ask their headmaster to allow them to go have the corn ground the next time it needs grinding, convinced they can prevent the miller from cheating them. The headmaster agrees, and the two set out on their journey by horseback.

Symkyn, however, understand their plan and vows to steal even more of their flour than he ordinarily would, to prove to them that students can’t outsmart him.

He unties their horse and sends them chasing it across the fields all day,giving Symkyn time to steal flour from them, so his wife bake into a cake and hide.

Having wasted the whole day horse-catching, Aleyn and John decide to stay the night at Symkyn’s house.

After a long night of drinking, the family go to sleep. John and Alan, however, stay up plotting their revenge.

There are three beds: Symkyn and his wife sleep in one of them, their daughter in the second, and John and Alan in the third.

Aleyn decides to use the close proximity of Symkyn’s daughter, Malyne, and sleeps with her and John does the same with Symkyn’s wife.

When Aleyn tries to return to his bed, he crawl into bed with Symkyn by accident. Thinking he’s John, Aleyn boasts to Symkyn that he sleept with the miller’s daughter all night.

Symkyn rises out of bed and punches Aleyn in the nose, then tumbles onto the bed where John and his wife are sleeping. When his wife wakes up, she tries to help her husband by hitting the clerks with a staff, but mistakes her husband’s bald skull for the white caps the clerks wear, and knocks him over the head instead.

John and Alan grab the bread, the remaining flour, and the horse and leave.