The Canon’s Yeoman’s tale begins with the narrator giving us some background information about his experiences with alchemy. He warns that alchemy is a pseudoscience and tells that he has become extremely poor from attempting alchemy for over 7 years. He also warns that anybody who tries to discover the secrets of alchemy will only become poor. The narrator continues on, stating that all alchemists lie about their work. They simply deceive others into believing a certain reaction has occurred when it really hasn’t. The narrator wraps up his speech, stating that all is not what it seems when it comes to people and their perceived views. We are then introduced to the actual story. The narrator begins by describing this canon in particular as very sly and untrustworthy. This canon can make any many who talks to him act foolish with his cunning antics. The narrator then begins to describe a priest who lended this canon some gold after he begged for it. A couple days later, the canon returned to the priest to pay him back the borrowed gold. Little did the priest know that the canon would use some of his cruel tricks on him. The narrator makes a comment on how keeping your word is very important and then begins to describe the tricks pulled on the priest. To start, the canon asks the priest’s servant to go find some coals and quicksilver so he could “transform” them into real silver before the priest’s eyes. The canon hands the priest the quicksilver and instructs him to place about an ounce of it in a crucible. Using sleight of hand, the canon replaces the normal coal with fake coal filled with silver fillings. Once the coal is set on fire, the silver fillings fall to the bottom of the crucible, making it seem as if the canon had turned the quicksilver into real silver. Next, the canon asks the priest to give him a chalk stone, claiming he will turn it into a silver rod. The canon sneakily pushes a silver rod into the chalk stone and sets it into a bowl of water. The water melts away the chalk, revealing a silver rod. The priest becomes more and more impressed with the canon, but the canon has one more demonstration. The canon takes more quicksilver and sets it into a bowl. He then takes a hollow stick and fills one end with silver fillings, blocking the end off with wax. He then puts the hollowed stick above the bowl of quicksilver and stirs, creating the illusion of silver being made from quicksilver. After seeing this, the priest was absolutely astonished and was willing to pay a hefty price for the “magical” quicksilver. The canon then takes a copious amount of gold from the priest in exchange for the quicksilver, completing his evil scam. The narrator ends this tale by saying it is very easy for men to exchange their gold for nothing in return, hinting at the fact that chasing wealth can result in a waste of time and a burdensome life.