Note 114 — FABLES.

Unquestionably these poems are original as to the mode of treating them; but, in both cases, Chaucer was contented to adopt the story of some more ancient tale-teller. The "Wife of Bath's Tale" is imitated from the "Florent" in Gower, and that probably from the work of an older minstrel. Or Chaucer may have copied the old tale called the "Marriage of Sir Gawain," which is probably the corrupted fragment of a metrical romance. The apologue of "The Cock and the Fox," is to be found in the "Fables" of Marie of France, who seems to have lived in the reign of Henry III. of England.