Symkyn

Symkyn

Symkyn is the nickname of Simon, the miller in Geoffrey Chaucer's fabliau The Reeve's Tale.

Osewold, the reeve in Chaucer's Tales, uses this character to requite the Miller's Tale (a fabliau as well), because in that tale a carpenter called John is cuckolded. Since Osewold is a carpenter himself, he decides to tell a tale in which a miller is the fool.

Symkyn sets his customers' horse free in order to have some time for himself to steal some of the flour he grinds for them. Aleyn and John, two students from Cambridge, take revenge at night by seducing his wife and his daughter, called Malyne.

When Symkyn discovers what happened, he tries to beat up Aleyn but is hit over the head by his own wife who is trying to help him. The students manage to recover both their flour and the cake made from the stolen flour.


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  • The Reeve's Prologue and Tale — is the third story told in Geoffrey Chaucer s The Canterbury Tales . The reeve, named Oswald in the text, is the manager of a large estate who reaped incredible profits for his master and himself. He is described in the Tales as skinny and bad… …   Wikipedia

  • Reeve’s Tale, The —    by Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1392)    The Reeve’s Tale is the third of CHAUCER’s CANTERBURY TALES. The tale is a FABLIAU offering a cynical but comic view of human beings at their worst. It employs a common folklore motif called the “cradle… …   Encyclopedia of medieval literature

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