Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales retold

In Competition No. 3200, you were invited to retell one of Chaucer’s tales in the style of another author.

The voices that dominated, in a medium–sized entry, were those of the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, the Miller and the Nun’s Priest. Chaucer’s pilgrims were offered a free dinner for the best yarn, but this week’s winners will have to make do with a prize of £25 each. Nick MacKinnon, Frank McDonald, David Shields, Janine Beacham, Rosemary Sayer and Victoria Owens earn honourable mentions.

Wilt thou forgive those sins whereby, misled, A wonton wife, betroth’d four times before, Did, at the fourth one’s funeral, choose to wed A clerk possessed of vigour and allure? This woman then did justify her lust By citing such as Solomon who took More wives than one and thereby bid us trust All that is writ in God’s most Holy Book; Forgive thou wilt, as thou forgave the knight Who raped a maiden fair and yet was spared By learning that a wife knows best what’s right, And thus, by Grace, in God’s forgiveness shared. Bathed