Symkyn
"The Reeve's Tale" is the third story told in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. The reeve, named Oswald in the text, is the manager of a large estate who reaped incredible profits for his master and himself. He is described in the Tales as skinny and bad-tempered. The Reeve had once been a carpenter, a profession mocked in the previous Miller's Tale. Oswald responds with a tale that mocks the Miller's profession.
The tale is based on a popular fabliau (also the source of the Sixth Story of the Ninth Day of The Decameron) of the period with many different versions, the "cradle-trick." Chaucer improves on his sources with his detailed characterization and sly humour linking the act of grinding corn with sex. The northeastern accent of the two clerks is also the earliest surviving attempt in English to record a dialect from an area other than that of the main writer. Chaucer's works are written with traces of the southern English or London accent of himself and his scribes, but he extracts comedy from imitating accents, a comedic device that is still popular today.