The Reeve's Tale

The Reeve's Tale is part of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Summary

The miller Symkyn steals grain from two Cambridge students, Aleyn and John, after distracting them by releasing their horse. The students stay overnight in his crowded house.

Aleyn goes to the bed of the miller's daughter, Malyne. John moves the baby's cradle so that the miller's wife, returning in the dark, mistakes John's bed for her own. Later Aleyn uses the displaced cradle to orient himself and mistakenly gets into the miller's bed. His boast provokes a fight, during which the miller is beaten.

The tale links theft, retaliation and sexual deception. Its comic treatment of these events should not obscure questions of coercion and consent. The moved cradle is especially relevant to the study of spatial description: the same reference point produces different mistakes when its location changes.