P R O L O G U E,
OR
INTRODUCTION
TO THE
CANTERBURY TALES.
In that pleasant season of the year when the April showers and the soft west wind make the grass and flowers to spring up in every mead and heath, and birds welcome the shining days, it is the custom with people from all parts of the country to set forth on pilgrimages to foreign lands, and more especially to pay their vows at the shrine raised in Canterbury to the holy martyr St. Thomas à Becket.
At this time of the year, I, Geoffry Chaucer, the writer of these Tales, was remaining at
