The Nun’s Priest is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. He is one of the pilgrims who is traveling to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. The Nun’s Priest weaves a tale together that is similar to a sermon, complete with a message about the folly of human pride and error. The way that it is told is through a classic literary genre—a beast fable, like the ones described by Aesop.

In the tale, the Priest tells the story of a widow with two daughters who had a prized cock—a rooster that can crow both more beautifully and louder than any other rooster. The rooster, Chanticleer, is described in the story as having authority over seven hens, which he describes as both sisters and lovers: “This gentle cock had in his governance Seven hens, for to do all his pleasánce.” The rooster, being given human qualities, can act as the protagonist of the beast fable.

The fable, a traditional way of telling stories to children, functions by teaching a clear lesson or moral as the result of the actions of the animals at the end of the story. For Chanticleer, the moral of the story revolves around pride. In the story, his voice is the thing he takes pride in, and the fox uses that to trick him: “Was only for to hearken how you sing, / For truly you have as merry a steven.” The fox makes it clear that he hasn’t come to eat Chanticleer, but to hear him sing. When Chanticleer does sing, the fox grabs him and runs away with him. Chanticleer is taught a lesson about pride, that it leads to the downfall of all people. He manages to escape and can resist the fox’s wiles a second time.

At a second level, the story functions as a mock-heroic, satirizing the epic language used to talk about heroes and their exploits. The animals are used to mock the stories of great humans because they function as great humans. The widow and her daughters in the story are secondary characters. The animals, in particular Chanticleer and his lover Peretlote, argue about dreams and philosophy in the story—making fun of the characters of epics that discuss high philosophy. If a rooster can do it, and do it while talking about laxatives and bathroom humor, it must not be as heroic as it seems.

The mock-heroic aspect that satirizes the writing style of epic poetry comes when the fox, Daun Russell, tricks Chanticleer and takes him away. An example of how the heroic language is used to ridicule the genre is when Daun Russell first appears—he is called “O false murderer! lurking in thy den! O new Iscariot, new Ganelon!” The irony and thus satire comes from the fact that such high language is used when talking about the action of a fox taking a chicken, a common occurrence. The heroic, a genre that often makes the actions of a hero seem epic and grand, is mocked for being animalistic and simple rather than dignified.

Through the use of both the bestiary fable and mock-heroic, Chaucer can comment on how humans operate in hypocrisy. The pride that Chanticleer feels in the first act mirrors the pride people feel at the heroic deeds recounted in epic stories. Chaucer points out the fallacy of these stories and their failure to capture the true nature of the human condition, by painting a picture of the fallible nature of humans both through the ridiculous quality of the Nun’s Priest’s tale and the presentation of the pilgrims on the journey as nasty, evil, or foolish.