CHAUCER’S PILGRIMS.
Some of Chaucer’s best tales are not told by himself. They are put into the mouths of other people. In those days there were no newspapers—indeed there was not much news—so that when strangers who had little in common were thrown together, as they often were in inns, or in long journeys, they had few topics of conversation: and so they used to entertain each other by singing songs, or quite as often by telling their own adventures, or long stories such as Chaucer has written down and called the ‘Canterbury Tales.’
The reason he called them the ‘Canterbury Tales’ was because they were supposed to be told by a number of travellers who met at an inn, and went together on a pilgrimage to a saint’s shrine at Canterbury.
But I shall now let Chaucer tell you about his interesting company in his own way.
He begins with a beautiful description of the spring—the time usually chosen for long journeys, or for any new undertaking, in those days.
When you go out into the gardens or the fields, and see the fresh green of the hedges and the white May blossoms and the blue sky, think of Chaucer and his Canterbury Pilgrims!
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