J.R.R. TOLKIEN
The Reeve’s Tale
Version Prepared for Recitation at the ‘Summer Diversions’
Oxford: 1939
[Editors’ note: In August 1938, Tolkien took part in the Oxford “Summer Diversions” organized by John Masefield and Nevill Coghill. He impersonated Chaucer and recited, from memory, “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.” In the following year, on 28 July 1939, Tolkien returned with a similar performance of a slightly abridged version of “The Reeve’s Tale.” For this occasion a pamphlet was issued, containing Tolkien’s prefatoryremarks and his version of “The Reeve’s Tale.” Although prepared for a general audience, it nevertheless was compiled with Tolkien’s usual care and skill, and Tolkien Studies is pleased to reprint the text of this rare pamphlet as a companion to his scholarly essay on the same subject. Tolkien later noted that “The recitation [in] 1939 of Reeve’s Tale was swamped by war and though successful was not noticed.”]
Among Chaucer’s pilgrims was a reeve, Oswold of Baldeswell in Norfolk. The miller had told a story to the discredit of an Osney carpenter and Oxford clerks, and Oswold, who practised the craft of carpentry, was offended. In this tale he has his revenge, matching the miller’s story with one to the discredit of a Trumpington miller and clerks of Cambridge.
The story is comic enough even out of this setting, but it fits the supposed narrator unusually well. Nonetheless, ‘broad’ as it is, it probably fits the actual author, Chaucer himself, well enough to justify the representation of him as telling it in person. Apart from its merits as a comic tale of ‘lewed folk,’ this piece has a special interest. Chaucer seems to have taken unusual pains with it. He gave new life to the fabliau, the plot of which he borrowed, with the English local colour that he devised; and he introduced the new joke of comic dialect. This does not seem to have been attempted in English literature before Chaucer, and has seldom been more successful since.
Even in the usual printed texts of Chaucer the northern dialectal character of the speeches of Alain and John is plain. But a comparison of various manuscripts seems to show that actually Chaucer himself went further: the clerks’ talk, as he wrote it, was probably very nearly correct and pure northern dialect, derived (as usual with Chaucer) from books as well as from observation. A remarkable feat at the time. But Chaucer was evidently interested in such things, and had given considerable thought to the linguistic situation in his day. It may be observed that he presents us with an East-Anglian reeve, who is amusing southern, and largely London, folk with imitations of northern speech brought southward by the attraction of the universities. This is a picture in little of the origins of literary and London English. East-Anglia played an important part in transmitting to the capital northerly features of language—such as ill, their and the inflexion in brings, which are in this tale used as dialectalisms, but have since become familiar. The East-Anglian reeve is a symbol of this process, and at the same time in real contemporary life a not unlikely person to have negotiated the dialect in such a tale. The whole thing is very ingenious.
The dialect is. of course, meant primarily to be funny. Chaucer relied for his principal effect on the long ā, preserved in the north in many words where the south had changed to ō: as in haam, bānes, naa, for ‘home, bones, no.’ But in these short speeches there are many minor points of form and vocabulary which are finer than was necessary for the easy laugh, and show that Chaucer had a personal interest in linguistic detail. For instance: the phrase dreven til hething is typically northern in the form dreven for driven; in the use of driven for put in this expression; in the substitution of til for to; and in the use of the Scandinavian word hething, ‘mockery.’ Other marked dialectalisms are slik ‘such,’ imell ‘among,’ bōs ‘behoves.’ Chaucer makes the Reeve disclaim any accurate knowledge of the locality—it is fer in the north, I can nat telle where. But Chaucer himself seems to have been less vague: he was thinking of the northernmost parts of England, now Northumberland and Durham. Strother is a genuine village name in that region. The clerk John swears by Saint Cuthbert, just as the Osney carpenter swore by Saint Frideswide. Saint Cuthbert was the patron of Durham, the terra sancti Cuthberti, and his name, not elsewhere mentioned by Chaucer, is here certainly a final touch of local colour.
The text given here is slightly abbreviated. Only in the words of the clerks is there any material departure from the text as printed by Skeat. These words are presented here in a more marked and consistently northern form—in nearly every case with some manuscript authority. A star * is prefixed to the two or three lines that the process of abbreviation made it necessary to alter. Unlike many of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Reeve’s tale is neither easy to shorten nor improved by the process.
At Trumpingtŏn nat fer fro Cantebrigge
ther gooth a brook and over that a brigge,
upon the whichë brook ther stant a melle.
And this is verray sooth that I yow telle:
a Miller was theer dwelling many a day;
as any peecok he was proud and gay.
Pipen he couthe, and fissche, and nettës bete,
and turnen cuppës, and wel wrastle and schete;
and by his belt he bar a long panade,
and of a swerd ful trenchant was the blade. 10
A joly popper bar he in his pouche;
ther nas no man for peril dorste him touche;
a Scheffeld thwitel bar he in his hose.
Round was his face and camus was his nose;
as pilëd as an apë was his skulle.
He was a market-beter attë fulle.
Ther dorstë no wight hond upon him legge,
that he ne swoor he scholde anoon abegge.
A theef he was for sothe of corn and mele,
and that a sligh, and usaunt for to stele. 20
His namë was hoten deignous Simkin.
A wif he hadde, ycŏmen of noblë kin:
the persoun of the toun hir fader was.
With hir he yaf ful many a panne of bras,
for that Simkin scholde in his blood allie.
Sche was yfostrëd in a nŏnnerie;
for Simkin noldë no wif, as he saide,
but sche were wel y-norissed and a maide,
to saven his estat of yomanrie;
and schee was proud, and pert as is a pie. 30
A ful fair sightë was it on hem two!
on halidaies beforn hir wolde he go
with his tipet bounden aboute his heed,
and sche coom after in a gite of reed,
and Simkin haddë hosen of the same.
Ther dorstë no wight clepen hir but dame;
nas noon so hardy that wentë by the weye
that with hir dorstë rage or ones pleye,
but if he woldë be slain of Simkin
with panade or with knif or boidëkin. 40
For jalous folk been perilous euermo;
algate thay wolde hir wiues weenden so!
A doghter haddë thay betwixe hem two
of twenty yeer, withouten any mo
sauinge a child that was of half-yeer age:
in cradel it lay and was a proprë page.
This wenchë thikke and well ygrowen was,
with camus nose and yën greye as glas,
with buttokes brode and breestës rounde and hie;