The story begins with two strangers, the Canon and the Yeoman joining the rest of the group on the road to Canterbury. The two showed up with their horses covered in sweat looking like they have been riding all night, trying to run away from someone or something.

The rest of the group was surprised by the condition the two showed up in and the innkeeper asked the two if they can tell a story, so the Yeoman decides to tell how smart his master is and how creative the canon can be. However, the Yeoman beings to say all of the Canon’s failures of creating the Philosopher’s stone and how the Canon was able to trick priests into giving their money to them. Then as quick as the two came, the Canon quickly ran away from the group because of embarrassment.

When the Canon ran away, the Yeoman then told different stories of how the Canon tricked the priest, such as giving the priest quicksilver saying it was real silver. However, the Canon returns saying that the Yeoman has confused him with another Canon who is a liar and a thief. The Yeoman is embarrassed by his foolish mistake. In this story there are four main themes and they are corruption of the church, deceit, money and greed, religion.

A theme in the story that I found to be important was the fact that the Yeoman doesn’t know what true or false is. This could relate back to the fact that the Canon would always manipulate the priest in order to get more funds and how he would also trick others for money and the Yeoman believing that the Canon actually created a precious metal. It can also relate to how the Yeoman didn’t realize what his master was really doing and how the Canon was able to trick his servant as well.