A CHANCE-GATHERED company of pilgrims on their way to the
shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, met at the old
Tabard Inn, later called the Talbot, in South wark and the host
proposed that they should beguile the ride by each telling a tale to
his fellow-pilgrims. This we all know was the origin of the
immortal " Canterbury Tales " of our great fourteenth-century poet,
Geoffrey Chaucer. Unfortunately, the tales were never completed,
and perhaps that is why the quaint and curious " Canterbury
Puzzles," devised and propounded by the same body of pilgrims,
were not also recorded by the poet's pen. This is greatly to be
regretted, since Chaucer, who, as Leland tells us, was an " ingenious
mathematician," and the author of a learned treatise on the astrolabe,
was peculiarly fitted for the propounding of problems. In presenting
for the first time some of these old-world posers, I will not stop to
explain the singular manner in which they came into my possession, but
proceed at once, without unnecessary preamble, to give my readers
an opportunity of solving them and testing their quality. There are
certainly far more difficult puzzles extant, but difficulty and interest
are two qualities of puzzledom that do not necessarily go together.
I.—
The Reves Puzzle.
The Reve was a wily man and something of a scholar. As
Chaucer tells us, " There was no auditor could of him win " and
" there could no man bring him in arrear." The poet also noticed
that " ever he rode the hindermost of the route." This he did that
he might the better, without interruption, work out the fanciful
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