When a fisherman’s wife claims she wouldn’t mind if he lost a certain... appendage, he decides to put her loyalty to the test. What follows involves a drowned priest, a strategic swap, a bag of beans, and one of the most awkward reunions in fabliau history.

Love is complicated. So are fishing trips.

Le pecheor de Pont-sur-Seine (The fisherman of Pont-sur-Seine): a tale of tricks, turnarounds, and anatomy-based emotional growth.

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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A noblewoman is seduced by a strange knight bearing magical gifts. When her husband finds out, he leaves her. So she gets even. Disguised as “Sir Henry,” she wins tournaments, her husband’s trust, and eventually… him. 

The Belt by Dietrich von der Glezze is a 13th-century German tale of trickery, transformation, and what happens when your wife becomes a better knight than you and outbids your libido - posted, appropriately, on International Women’s Day.

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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A young man boasts he could handle twelve wives. He marries one. She ruins him.

When the village captures a wolf, he suggests, “Give him a wife.”

Le valet aus .xii. Fames (The fellow with a dozen wives) is a fabliau about ego, endurance, and learning the hard way that marriage is not for amateurs.

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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A young wife meets her priest in the bushes. Her husband finds the bed empty. What follows is a knife, a near-confession, and a last-minute excuse involving fertility rituals, apostolic dirt, and walking barefoot around a church at midnight.

La damme qui fist .iii. tors entor le moustier (Thrice Around the Church) is a fabliau about adultery, audacity, and the spiritual power of thinking fast.

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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When a young man falls in love with a newlywed, he hires a crafty old neighbor named Auberée to help. What follows includes a planted surcoat, a fake miracle, and one of the most elaborately staged reconciliations in medieval literature.

Auberée is a fabliau about lust, lies, logistics—and how to play everyone in town without ever breaking a sweat.

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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Two moneychangers. One wife. A tub full of regret.

In Les .ii. changeors (The two Moneychangers), a clever woman turns the tables on her husband’s friend—who’s also her not-so-secret lover—with nothing but bathwater, bravado, and a flawless poker face.

It’s a cautionary tale about overconfidence, underbathing, and why you should never assume you’re the smartest one in the room—especially when you're naked.

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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When no angels or demons show up to claim his soul, a dead peasant takes matters into his own hands and walks straight into Heaven. Saint Peter tries to kick him out. So does Saint Thomas. Then Saint Paul. All three are verbally demolished by a man who’s had just about enough of sanctimonious gatekeeping. Even Christ Himself has to admit defeat.

L’arme qui guangna paradis par plait (The soul that argued its way into heaven) is wild fabliau about divine bureaucracy, celestial loopholes, and the power of a really, really solid argument.

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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A cloistered girl sees a crane. She wants it. The young man carrying it names his price—one she doesn’t understand, but pays all the same. As the bird comes and goes, so too do questions of innocence, value, and the patience of overworked nurses.

La damoiselle de la grue (The Crane), a feather-light fabliau with a sharp beak.

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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When his sick wife asks for a priest, a knight gets curious. He dresses in robes, sneaks in as a confessor, and listens in. What he hears breaks his heart—or maybe just his pride.

Too bad she knew it was him.

Le chevalier qui fist sa fame confesse is a hilarious medieval tale of mischief, marriage, and one woman’s improv masterclass in “sins.”

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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A weary butcher stops in a priest’s village with nothing but a stolen sheep and a lot of nerve. By morning, he’s seduced the maid, seduced the priest’s mistress, sold the priest his own animal’s hide, and left a house full of chaos behind him.

By Eustache d’Amiens, Le bouchier d’Abevile is a ferociously funny fabliau about hypocrisy, sex, revenge—and getting fleeced in more ways than one.

📜 Text: Translation by Nathaniel E. Dubin

🎵 Title music: “Celebration” by Alexander Nakarada

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