The Canon Yeoman's Tale
Now that we're nearing the end of the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer decides he needs to spice things up by introducing some new characters. Meet the Canon and his Yeoman, who just missed the train as it departed from the Host's inn that morning, and are finally catching up on horseback. The Canon is a man of few works, and his Yeoman does the talking, which is incredibly unfortunate for me because my fingers cannot for all that is holy type out the word "yeoman" correctly the first time no matter how hard I try.
The Yeoman goes on for a bit about how smart his Canon is, but the Host goes, well if that's true, how come he can't afford clothes that aren't all full of holes? To which the Yeoman says, well, he's smart, but he's not smart at how he applies his smarts.
The Host replies, cool, cool. So why's your face all fucked up?
The Yeoman tells him, ah, you know, I have to blow on the fire all the time, since we're always doing stupid alchemy. Or at least we're trying to. We haven't gotten it to work yet, even though we keep taking money from people to try.
At this point, the Canon rides back up and says, hey, you're not talking shit about me, are you? But the Host tells the Yeoman, don't let him boss you around like that, even though he is actually your boss. The Yeoman replies, fine, I'll tell you everything—much to the chagrin of the Canon, who runs off elsewhere.
"Good riddance," says the presumably newly-unemployed Yeoman. The version of the book I'm reading specifies that this is where his tale begins, although the first few pages of his "tale" are his exploits in performing alchemy with the Canon. Or, to be more precise, their lack of exploits. The Yeoman goes into great detail about the materials and methods they used, but also curses alchemy the entire time because all of it ended up to be a waste of effort.
Eventually, we reach what the book considers
Part II
...but which I consider the actual start of the stupid story. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that the book never labels Part I.
The Yeoman tells of an evil, lying canon—
"—Wait," says the Host, "would this happen to be the guy you were just with?" To which the Yeoman responds by having a sudden coughing fit, before finally saying, "Um... no?"
So one day, this canon goes and visits the home of a retired priest. This guy is so well-loved that he's not paying rent, so he's got some extra cash floating around. The canon knows this, and asks the priest to borrow some money, promising to pay the priest back in three days. Three days later, the canon keeps his promise and returns with the cash.
"Wow," says the priest, "normally if you lend somebody money, you never get it back. You're all right, canon. I'll lend to you every time."
"Hey, that's great," replies the canon. "You're making a good choice. I always pay back my debts, see, because I know a little alchemy. No, don't ask me why somebody who can create gold from nothing needs to keep borrowing money. Anyway, do you want me to teach you how to do it?"
The priest agrees, and the canon shows him the proper procedures for turning various materials into silver. By this, I mean the canon actually has small quantities of silver hidden on his person, and each time he throws them into the cauldron when the priest isn't looking, so when the priest sees silver in the pot at the end he thinks he's accomplishing something miraculous.
After tricking the priest three times, the canon is about to take his leave, when the priest asks, hey, this is great. Can I pay you anything for teaching this to me?
The canon quotes him forty pounds, which the priest is perfectly happy to pay. Then the canon adds, hey, don't tell anybody you learned this from me; people get a little funny about alchemy, and I don't want them coming after me with pointy sticks. Okay bye!
Obviously, no matter how hard the priest tries after that, he's unable to produce any silver like the canon showed him.
After some more ranting from the Yeoman on how God doesn't want you to perform alchemy either, I think we can pretty clearly guess how Chaucer felt about the subject.
Here ends the Canon's Yeoman's Tale.