The Nun's Priest's Tale
Both the Knight and the Host spend a couple paragraphs berating the Monk for telling such awful, sad stories. Then the Host asks the Monk to tell something else, but the Monk says "fuck off". So the Host asks the Nun's Priest to tell a lighthearted tale instead, and this is it:
On an old widow's farm there lives a rooster named Chanticleer. He has a harem of seven hens, but his favorite is Pertelote. She is the plumpest and prettiest hen of all, and they sing the loveliest songs together (not a euphemism).
One day, the chickens wake up from their roosting. Chanticleer says (because these are talking chickens) that he had a scary dream about a fox. Hearing this, Pertelote starts tearing into Chanticleer, saying that men aren't supposed to be afraid of anything, especially a dream no less, and she even quotes Cato (because these are educated chickens) to let him know what a coward he is being and that he shouldn't take stock in dreams.
Chanticleer says, actually, dreams are well-known to portent ill fate, and here's a bunch of examples to back me up. Then he tells two mini-tales, one about a man who doesn't heed a dream and discovers his friend murdered in a dung cart, and another about a man who does heed a dream and doesn't get killed in a shipwreck. He also references multiple biblical figures, Croesus from the Monk's Tale which was just last chapter, and even Hector from the Iliad, although this last one kind of invalidates his point because if dreams were this reliable then why didn't the depths of my subconscious warn me about that goddamn chariot race?
But eventually Chanticleer decides, on the other hand, Pertelote is a very pretty chicken and I would like to continue having weird cloacal-based intercourse with her, so actually, she's right, dreams are stupid. Then they all leave the roost and go peck at corn because they are chickens.
An entirely unclear amount of time passes, and it is now April. The chickens are out being chickens, but it so happens that a fox had snuck in the fence the previous evening and is laying in wait. Chanticleer wanders a little too close to the fox and spots him, but he freezes up, stuck in that brief moment where he realizes he's probably in trouble but instinct hasn't decided what he should do about it yet.
The fox realizes he's been made, and says, whoa, hold on now. You think I came in here to eat you? No, of course not. I just heard you were a really good singer and I wanted to hear it.
Being the absolute cock of the walk, Chanticleer buys that wholesale, without so much as considering the dream he had once an indeterminable amount of time ago. And so, he begins to sing.
"La—" he begins, when the fox chomps his neck and runs off.
"See, this is why you should never take advice from a woman," says the Nun's Priest, before remembering that he is employed by a woman, at which point he begins to backpedal hard. "Uhh, that's what the rooster said, anyway. That's certainly not my opinion. Please don't cancel me."
Well, the hens start squawking, alerting all the people, and pretty soon the entire town is chasing after the fox, who is booking for the woods, and it's pretty clear he's going to get away.
"Hey," says Chanticleer despite having his neck clamped by a fox jaw, "you know, if I were you, I'd take a moment to brag to all the people about how they're never going to catch you."
"That's an amazing idea!" exclaims the fox, but even as he says this, Chanticleer seizes the opportunity to pull himself out of the fox's jaw while he is talking. Then he flies up into a tree to safety.
The moral of the story is something something vanity, anyway I hope you enjoyed how hilarious I am.
Here the Nun's Priest's Tale ends.