One of the stories in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is about a young knight of King Arthur’s. The knight could not control his lust when he came across a beautiful maiden. Arthur’s Court was scandalised by the rape and the knight’s execution was ordered. The Queen and her ladies, however, interceded and got the punishment commuted. The knight is given a year’s time to find out what women want most in the world. The knight went from place to place finding out what women wanted most. He got different answers from different women. “Wealth and treasure,” said some. Honour, jollity, pleasure, gorgeous clothes, fun in bed... thus went the women’s options. Some even wanted to be “oft widowed and remarried.” Seeing that women could never agree on one thing, the knight rode back with the odour of death in his nostrils. On his way back, he came across an old hag. Chaucer’s narrator, Wife of Bath, reminds us that those were the days of fairies and elves, days before relig
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