The Gray Palfrey is a French tale that scholars date back all the way to the twelfth and thirteenth century. The tale is what is known as "fabliau." A fabliau is a poem in which the lines both rhyme and have a specific number of syllables. It's also a story, and the early French fabliaux were often quite funny and ridiculous.

That brings us to The Gray Palfrey. There are many translations of The Gray Palfrey, but they're not so easy to find. We've provided two links for you. One is a translation in poetry, and the other turns the poem into prose.

In terms of what The Gray Palfrey is about, you may want to think of it as a fairy tale. As with most fairy tales, it contains a dramatic love affair, a stringing betrayal, and some helpful animals. The Gray Palfrey also centers on a knight who is madly in love. When the knight asks the father character for his daughter's hand in marriage, the father declines, believing he should marry his daughter to someone more richer and estimable than an "errant knight."

The knight then goes to his uncle, who has lots of land and riches. The plan is for the uncle to give his nephew some of his opulence so that the father will let his daughter marry the knight, but what happens instead? The uncle goes and proposes to the daughter himself. Talk about a backstabber.

However, as the uncle's men are escorting his impending bride to her destiny, the gray horse she's riding takes a detour to the knight's home, and the knight and the daughter marry, basically living happily ever after.