Symkyn - Source

Source

Although some scholars are reluctant to say that Chaucer ever read the Decameron, Chaucer's story is very close to one told in Day IX, Tale 6 of that set of Italian tales, in which two clerks lodge with an innkeeper for the night. One of the clerks, who has long been an admirer of the innkeeper's daughter, slips into her bed while she is asleep and, after her fears are overcome, they both enjoy sex together. Later, a cat wakes up the innkeeper's wife and she gets up to investigate. The second clerk gets up to go to the bathroom and moves the cradle in front of the innkeeper's bed because it is in the way. After he returns to his bed, the innkeeper's wife returns and feels her way to the bed with the cradle in front of it, which is actually the clerk's bed. She slips in beside him and both are surprised and have sex together. The wife later explains to the suspecting innkeeper that she was in her daughter's bed all night. The story has several differences from Chaucer's in that the clerks do not plot against the innkeeper but are only there to get to his daughter. No mill is even mentioned in the story.

More broadly, this type of tale is known as a "cradle-trick" tale, where the wife gets into the wrong bed because the cradle has been moved. These tales were popular all over Europe in the Middle Ages. One such story is the 13th-century French Le meunier et les II clers. In this tale, the clerks do not know the miller, but are new in town looking for jobs as bakers. The miller has his wife send them into the woods looking for him while he steals their goods. They come back and end up spending a night with the family, and find that the miller's daughter spends every night locked in a bin in order to protect her chastity. During the night, the miller's wife has sex with one of the clerks in exchange for a ring which will restore her virginity. She then gives the clerk the key to her daughter's bin and invites him to have sex with her. The miller later finds out and accuses his wife, only to have her reveal that he is a robber. Other "cradle-trick" tales include the French De Gombert et des deux clers, a Flemish tale: Ein bispel van ij clerken, and two German tales: Das Studentenabenteuer and Irregang und Girregar.