A Puzzling Tale of Gold

Abstract

Gold cannot be made. The Priest, a simple good soul, must have learnt this to his own cost. He is one of the characters in The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale of the Canterbury Tales, a chain of stories written mostly in verse by Chaucer around the second part of the fourteenth century. The story line is a pilgrimage to Canterbury, the company of pilgrims telling each other stories, entertaining ones and salutary ones, just to make the long ride more lively and amusing. This pilgrimage must have been somewhat similar to a present-day package tour.