There was a man of Gotham who would be married, and when the day of marriage was come, they went to church. The priest said, Do you say after me. The man said, Do you say after me. The priest said, Say not after me such like, but say what I shall tell you; thou dost play the fool to mock the holy Scriptures concerning matrimony. The fellow said, Thou dost play the fool to mock the holy Scriptures concerning matrimony. The priest wist not what to say, but answered, What shall I do with this fool? and the man said, What shall I do with this fool? So the priest took his leave, and would not marry them. The man was instructed by others how to do, and was afterwards married. And thus the breed of the Gothamites has been perpetuated even unto this day. TALE XVIII. There was a Scotsman who dwelt at Gotham, and he took a house a little distance from London, and turned it into an inn, and for his sign he would have a boar’s head, accordingly he went to a carver, and said, Can you make me a bare head? Yes, said the carver. Then said he, make me a bare head, and thou’se hae twenty shillings for thy hire. I will do it, said the carver, on St Andrew’s day, before Christmas, (called Yule in Scotland,) the Scot came to London for his boar’s head. I say, speak, said the Scotsman, hast thou made me a bare head? Yes, said the carver. He went and brought a man’s head of wood that was bare, and said, Sir, there is your bare head. Ay said the Scot the meikle de’il! is this a bare head! Yes, said the carver. I say, said the Scotsman, I will have a bare head like the head that follows a sow with gryces. What, whoreson, know you not a sow that will greet and groan and cry a-week, a-week. What, said the carver, do you mean a pig! Yes, said the Scotsman, let me have her head made of timber, and set on her a scalp, and let her sing--Whip whire. The carver said he could not. You whoreson, said he, gar her as she’d sing whip whire. TALE XIX.