A Chance-gathered company of pilgrims, on their way to the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, met at the old Tabard Inn, later called the Talbot, in Southwark, and the host proposed that they should beguile the ride by each telling a tale to his fellow-pilgrims. This we all know was the origin of the immortal Canterbury Tales of our great fourteenth-century poet, Geoffrey Chaucer. Unfortunately, the tales were never completed, and perhaps that is why the quaint and curious "Canterbury Puzzles," devised and propounded by the same body of pilgrims, were not also recorded by the poet's pen. This is greatly to be regretted, since Chaucer, who, as Leland tells us, was an "ingenious mathematician" and the author of a learned treatise on the astrolabe, was peculiarly fitted for the propounding of problems. In presenting for the first time some of these old-world posers, I will not stop to explain the singular manner in which they came into my possession, but proceed at once, without unnecessary preamble, to give my readers an opportunity of solving them and testing their quality. There are certainly far more difficult puzzles extant, but difficulty and interest are two qualities of puzzledom that do not necessarily go together.
[1].—The Reve's Puzzle.
The Reve was a wily man and something of a scholar. As Chaucer tells us, "There was no auditor could of him win," and "there could no man bring him in arrear." The poet also noticed that "ever he rode the hindermost of the route." This he did that he might the better, without interruption, work out the fanciful problems and ideas that passed through his active brain. When the pilgrims were stopping at a wayside tavern, a number of cheeses of varying sizes caught his alert eye; and calling for four stools, he told the company that he would show them a puzzle of his own that would keep them amused during their rest. He then placed eight cheeses of graduating sizes on one of the end stools, the smallest cheese being at the top, as clearly shown in the illustration. "This is a riddle," quoth he, "that I did once set before my fellow townsmen at Baldeswell, that is in Norfolk, and, by Saint Joce, there was no man among them that could rede it aright. And yet it is withal full easy, for all that I do desire is that, by the moving of one cheese at a time from one stool unto another, ye shall remove all the cheeses to the stool at the other end without ever putting any cheese on one that is smaller than itself. To him that will perform this feat in the least number of moves that be possible will I give a draught of the best that our good host can provide." To solve this puzzle in the fewest possible moves, first with 8, then with 10, and afterwards with 21 cheeses, is an interesting recreation.
[2].—The Pardoner's Puzzle.
The gentle Pardoner, "that straight was come from the court of Rome," begged to be excused; but the company would not spare him. "Friends and fellow-pilgrims," said he, "of a truth the riddle that I have made is but a poor thing, but it is the best that I have been able to devise. Blame my lack of knowledge of such matters if it be not to your liking." But his invention was very well received. He produced the accompanying plan, and said that it represented sixty-four towns through which he had to pass during some of his pilgrimages, and the lines connecting them were roads. He explained that the puzzle was to start from the large black town and visit all the other towns once, and once only, in fifteen straight pilgrimages. Try to trace the route in fifteen straight lines with your pencil. You may end where you like, but note that the omission of a little road at the bottom is intentional, as it seems that it was impossible to go that way.