1. The Tale of the Nun’s Priest is founded on the fifth chapter
of an old French metrical “Romance of Renard;” the same story
forming one of the fables of Marie, the translator of the Breton
Lays. (See note 2 to the Prologue to the Franklin’s Tale.)
Although Dryden was in error when he ascribed the Tale to
Chaucer’s own invention, still the materials on which he had to
operate were out of cornparison more trivial than the result.
2. Tyrwhitt quotes two statutes of Edward III, in which “deys”
are included among the servants employed in agricultural
pursuits; the name seems to have originally meant a servant who
gave his labour by the day, but afterwards to have been
appropriated exclusively to one who superintended or worked
in a dairy.
3. Orgon: here licentiously used for the plural, “organs” or
“orgons,” corresponding to the plural verb “gon” in the next
line.