The Manciple's Tale
The traveling party is getting close to town now, which is convenient because we're getting close to the end of people who still need to tell tales. The Host says, hold on, who fell asleep at the back of the pack there? Is that the Cook? Somebody wake him up, he needs to tell a story.
The Cook says, ugh, I don't know what came over me. I'm just so sleepy right now.
The Manciple, who is riding next to him, hey, no worries pal, I'll cover for you. It's pretty clear you're in no shape to do any storytelling since your face is so pale, your eyes are so glazed over, and your breath smells like—oh, you're drunk right now, aren't you.
Then the Manciple, who was ready to do the Cook a solid only moments ago, now starts berating the guy for getting dead drunk, in public, in the middle of the day, on a pilgrimage. The Cook responds by saying, "Why I oughtta..." and then promptly passing out and falling off of his horse.
After he's woken up and put back in the saddle, the Host shrugs and says, yeah, I don't think I want him telling a story right now anyway, we'll probably just get another Miller's Tale.
"Hey wait," says Skep, "we got a tale from the Cook though. Or at least we got part of one. Did the Cook's tale get cut off because he fell asleep while telling it?"
Quickly changing the subject, the Host asks the Manciple, aren't you worried that the Cook is still going to be mad at you when he wakes up? But the Manciple offers the Cook some wine from his own pouch—a little hair of the dog, I guess—and the two become friends.
But since the Cook is still out of service for the day, the Manciple tells his story:
In days of yore, Phoebus (who I guess is Apollo even though this doesn't at all feel like a story about Apollo) was a brave, handsome, and noble knight, who was proficient with the bow and could play every instrument. In his home he kept a crow, which had snow-white feathers, who he taught to talk and sing.
In his home he also kept his wife, because he was incredibly insecure jealous, and spent a lot of time worrying that she was going to sleep with someone else. So he figures his best play is to keep her at home, like, all the time so she can't go out sneaking around, but also to dote on her and buy her nice things in hopes it will keep her satisfied.
But the Manciple notes, hey, you can't buy your bird an expensive golden cage and expect it to want to stay cooped up. It doesn't care how fancy the cage is. Bird wants to fly.
Lo and behold, one day while Phoebus is out, his wife invites over some random-ass dude she likes, and they do the thing. As a side note, who would have thought that so many of these tales would be about infidelity? Solid half of the book.
Anyway, Phoebus comes home later, expecting to be greeted by a lovely song from his crow. Instead, the crow is shrieking like a cuckoo clock.
"Well this is peculiar," says Phoebus. "What's up with you?"
"Listen," says the crow, "your wife brought in another man and did it right in front of me. It was kind of traumatic if I'm being honest."
"She did WHAT" shouts Phoebus. In a rage, he takes up his bow and kills his wife with an arrow. Then he loses it and smashes the weapon apart, and follows it up by destroying all of his instruments.
Completely mixing up the first two stages of grief, Phoebus now switches to denial. He realizes, oh shit, my wife was pure and good, she wouldn't do this to me! It was the damn crow, it lied to me! It made me do this! I am definitely not the one with the problem!
So he throws the crow from his house; but before he does, he plucks out all of its white plumage—turning the crow black (?)—and curses it so that it can no longer sing nor talk, and instead has to make a "caw caw caw" sound.
The Manciple says, and that's the story of why crows are crows. And remember, if you witness something bad and your friend doesn't know about it, you should just shut your trap and never ever say anything about it if you know what's good for you.
Here ends the Manciple's tale of the Crow.