Summary
“The Miller’s Tale” is about a carpenter named John who lives in Oxford with his wife Allison. Alison is something of a local beauty and she has recently caught the eye of many men. One of those men, Nicholas, has rented a room from John in their house. He has a bit of a crush on Allison and creates a plan to get in bed with her while John leaves town one day. When John leaves town, Nicholas and Allison sleep together and this begins their affair. Shortly after this happens, Allison goes to the church where she meets Absolon. Absolon instantly falls in love with her. He wanted to win the favor of Allison so he would go to her house to sing love songs to her by her window and he also took part in a play to try and catch Allison's attention. However, Allison is already involved with Nicholas so she disregards Absolons efforts to win her over. Meanwhile, Nicholas longs to spend a whole night with Allison rather than just a few moments. With the help of Allison, he comes up with a scheme to get him a free night with his new love. Nicholas decides to tell John that there is a flood coming which really scares John. John begins to listen to Nicholas’s story about the flood and how to escape it and believes every word he says. Nicholas says that the only way to escape the violent quickly approaching water is to tie some wooden buckets to the rafters of the home and sleep in them so when the water approaches they will be dry and then they can cut the ropes and float away freely. John thinks this is a great idea and sets out immediately to gather the tools that they will need to stay safe. After John ties the buckets to the ceiling, he climbs into his bucket but little does he know that Allison and Nicholas had gone to John’s bed to stay the night there together. The same night, Absolon goes to the window of the bedroom and begs Allison to give him a kiss. At first she refuses, but then she finally seems to give in. Instead of leaning her head out the window, she leaned her butt out the window to fool Absolon. This made him very angry so he left to get a hot poker with which he intends to brand Allison with. When he comes back to the window, Nicholas wanted to join in on the fun, so he stuck his butt out the window. Absolon branded Nicholas’s butt which caused him a great deal of pain. Nicholas cries out for water to dampen the pain. Meanwhile, John hears this from his bucket and thinks that the flood is coming so he cuts his ropes and crashes to the floor instead. The noise caused such a fuss that all the neighbors come rushing over and they start making fun of John.