Tales typically contain a valuable leadership lesson. The major characters go through some of the most significant events that have the ability to alter who they are. For the sake of maintaining the plot continuity of the stories, they encounter beings that possess supernatural powers and are capable of changing into the proper shapes. The encounter with such a being has an impact on the story characters, either good or negative. For instance, the supernatural power possessing being may bless a character in the story with material riches or even curse him or her. The paper considers the use of the supernatural powers and shape-shifting in “Wife of Bath's” and “The Friar Tales,” their functions and the characters they hope to transform.
The “Wife of Bath's Tale,” narrates the story of the lusty night who rapes a woman, robbing off her virginity. He is, however, condemned to death by beheading in the king's court unless he answers the question of what women want most in the world within a year. He goes around the kingdom asking the question to women, to which he receives different conflicting answers. However, on the verge of giving up, as he rides through the forest returning to the king’s court, he sees a group of beautiful women dancing. He heads to where they are but when he edges closer, the group disappears, and all he sees instead is an ugly old woman. Disappointed, the Knight narrates his predicament to the old woman who promises to help him if he pledges himself to her. With no option left, the knight agrees, and the woman gives her the answer.
In the passage, the ugly old woman appears to have supernatural powers which facilitate her shape-shifting from a bevy of beautiful ladies to an ugly aged woman. Further, she shows an extraordinary power of reasoning when she gives the answer that the Knight has been looking for all along. The Knight had already asked hundreds of women, but none of them knew that what women want is to be in control of their husbands but the old ugly women. At the court, the women unanimously agree that the answer provided by the Knight is right and thus, the man has no option but to give himself up to the old ugly women. She turns down the offer of taking all the man's material possessions and insists that she wants him as agreed. Further, they conduct a wedding, and on their wedding night, they sleep together, bringing the opportunity for the woman with supernatural powers to transform the knight.
The function of the ugly old woman is to help the knight eliminate his lusty tendencies and inebriation of power. When he was the knight at the king’s court, he felt that he had so much power that he rapes a woman and gets away with it. Further, he could not control his lust and thus lacked self-control. On the wedding night, the woman, after an insightful conversation asks him to choose between her, an ugly old woman, who is good and loyal, or a beautiful but unfaithful woman. Having been transformed by the earlier conversation, the man deserts his lust for beautiful women and his obsession with power. Instead of deciding, he tells the woman to decide for him what is appropriate. Surprisingly, the woman transforms herself into a beautiful woman who is good and loyal. The transformation of the intended character, the knight, is complete and thus, there is the woman with the supernatural powers and the shape-shifting ability rewards him with a beautiful and loyal wife whom he has a happily married life with for a long time.
Similarly, in “The Friar Tale,” a supernatural being is featured. The tale revolves around the exploits of a corrupt summoner. The summoner uses his influence to fleece the people their resources by bringing up inflated charges against them. He particularly had a team of people including harlots and pimps who would act as his investigators and feed him on incriminating evidence on the parishioners. However, instead of charging the accused individuals he would ask them to bribe them, and they would get away scot-free. In the tale, he is about to go and solicit a bribe from a widow using his normally made up charges. However, on his way to the widow’s house, he meets up with a Yeoman whom they developed some friendship and headed about their tasks together.
The supernatural being in the story is the Yeoman, while in the beginning, he pretends to be a bailiff, he, later on, tells the summoner that he is a fiend who leaves in hell. His work is to grant curses that are made by sincere individuals and banish the cursed people to hell. The interaction between the summoner and the fiend establishes that the later has a shape-shifting capability and can transform to any being he wishes to become. However, he terms the process too complicated for the summoner to grasp. As they head to the widow's house, the fiend explains that he can grant wishes for those people that are sincere in the story. To test his powers, the Summoner tells him to take away the horses and a cart belonging to a man who is stuck to the cargo. However, the fiend does not take them away from their owner as he is not sincere in his wishes but just frustrated that the horses are unable to pull the cart out of the mud. True to the fiend’s words, the horses manage to pull the cart out of the mud, and sure enough, the owner blesses them and is grateful that his ordeal is over.
In the story of the man with the horse-pulled cart, the reader realizes that the work of the fiend is to punish wrongdoers in the society. He makes it clear to the summoner that the sincerity of the wishes made by people depends on the crimes or wrong-doing of the cursed being. The horses are not bad to the owner, and his wish is out of frustration that the cart is stuck. It means that if the horses or any other thing had wronged the man, then his wishes would be sincere. Since the Fiend knew about the summoner’s activities, he was trying to forewarn the later that if he was cursed by one of his culprits in a sincere way, then the fiend will be doing his duty by taking him to hell. However, the summoner does not get the significance of the issue and proceeds to accuse the widow falsely.
The role of the supernatural being, in this case, the fiend in the friar tale is to change the character of the summoner. He appears to the summoner before he could perpetrate his acts and states his duties in granting curses to the aggrieved. His encounter with the man with the horse cart shows that he does not punish the innocent beings. Further, when the summoner charges the widow wrongly, the widow wishes that he be carried away whole to hell. Nevertheless, despite the sincerity of the wish, the fiend asks the widow if she is sincere. The fiend already knows that the widow would want the summoner to withdraw the charges and repent his sins and the question to the widow is a second chance for the summoner to withdraw the wrong charges and apologize for his mistakes. However, despite the fiend wanting to help the summoner transform into a good guy, the latter is not willing to change. When the summoner scoff off the idea to repent and leave the poor woman alone, the fiend does his duty and banishes him to hell, body, and soul.
In conclusion, both the “Wife of Bath’s” and “The Friar” Tales involve characters with supernatural powers. In the Bath’s wife, the lusty knight meets with the ugly old woman when he is in a desperate situation. The old woman helps the knight in his predicament, and later on, manages to help him do away his lust and thirst for power and transform into a better man. She then changes her shape to become a beautiful woman and lives with the knight for many happy days. Further, in the friar, the fiend is the supernatural being who tries to transform the summoner in vain. The fiend can change his shape into many beings, which helps him to fall in step with the activities of the summoner and offer him a chance to transform his wicked ways. However, unlike the lusty knight who transforms his ways to the better, the summoner turns down the offer to change his ways and is punished by the fiend when his body and soul are taken to hell.
