#  The Tell-Tale Bird 

 



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## The Book of the Knight of Latour-Landry

### \[A tale of a tell-tale bird.\]

*The text is lightly glossed; see the glossary in the Riverside Chaucer for words not explained here.*

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Page 22   
   
 CHAPTER XVI.   
   
 I woll tell you an ensaumple of a woman that ete the   
 good morsell in the absence of her husbonde.   
   
 Ther was a woman that had a pie in a cage, that spake and  
 wolde tell tales that she saw do. And so it happed that   
 her husbonde made kepe a gret eel in a litll ponde in his garden,   
 to that entent to yeve hit sum of his frendes that wolde come to   
 see him; but the wiff, whane her husbond was oute, saide to   
 her maide, "Late us ete the gret eel, and I will saye to my husbond   
 that the otour hath eten him;" and so it was done. And whan  
 the good man was come, the pie began to tell him how her   
 maistresse had eten the ele. And he yode to the ponde, and  
 fonde not the eel. And he asked his wiff wher the eel was become.   
 And she wende to have excused her, but he saide her   
 "Excuse you not, for well ye have eten it, for the pie   
 hathe told me." And so ther was gret noise betwene the man and   
 his wiff for etinge of the eel. But whann the good man was   
 gone, the maistresse and the maide come to the pie, and plucked   
 off all the fedres on the pies hede, saying, "thou hast discovered  
 us of the eel;" and thus was the pore pie plucked. But ever after,   
 whanne the pie saw a balled or pilled man, or a woman with  
 an high forhede, the pie saide to hem, "ye spake of the eel."   
 And therfor here us an ensaumple that no woman shulde ete no   
 licorous morcelles in the absens and withoute witting of her  
 husbond, but if it were so that it be with folk of worshippe, to   
 make hem chere; for this woman was afterward mocked for the   
 pie and the eel.



  
   
   
   
   
   
   
 **magpie**   
   
   
   
   
   
 **otter**   
   
 **went**   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 **feathers**   
   
 **bad or hairless**   
   
   
 **knowledge**







From *The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry*, EETS o.s. 33, London, ed. Thomas Wright (from MS Harley 1764 and Caxton's Print) rev ed. 1903 [Widener 11472.33.3], corrected in few minor details.