The Summoner's Tale

The Summoner's Tale is a humorous and satirical story from Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales." It narrates a humorous episode involving a friar who claims he can cure people’s illnesses and expects donations. A poor man, mocking the friar, offers him a fart in a bag, which the friar eagerly accepts, thinking it’s a valuable relic. The tale mocks greed, hypocrisy, and corruption among religious figures, using wit and irony to highlight their flaws. Overall, it’s a playful critique of ecclesiastical pretensions and human folly, wrapped in comic storytelling.