Irony Defined
The defining irony that is stamped upon the genre of the fabliaux stories—at least at the time they were written, though perhaps not quite so much anymore—is the job description of the most sexually ravenous, licentious, faithless, and hypocritical characters at the center of the sex romps that characterize the typical plot. That job description is priest. The clergy does, to say the least, come off admirably in these stories. Ironically, priests come as among the most un-Christlike members of the population.
Absurdity
It is not unheard-of for the irony in these stories to reach heights of absurdity. An excellent example is the story “Beranger Longbottom” in which a lazy slob who gained a knighthood and a wife is fooled by that wife when she disguises herself as a knight herself. Convincing her husband of “his” capability of killing him in a joust, the wife offers instead the alternative of literally (and figuratively) kissing her naked behind. The absurd level of irony climbs into the stratosphere when the husband not only fails to recognize that it is a female whose rear end he is kissing, but his own wife’s rear end at that.
Ironic Vengeance
Some of the plots climax in an ironic bit of vengeance. One of the more complex examples is found in “The Snow Baby.” This is yet another story of a deceptive wife. In this case, infidelity actually produces a child which must be explained. The explanation is another example of absurdity: she claims that it was a snowflake falling into her mouth which conceived the baby. Many years later, the husband takes the illegitimate offspring to Italy, sells him into slavery, and lets the wife know he knew the truth all along by feeding her a story that the boy melted in the hot Italian sun. The irony of that lie is compounded by the cruel irony that it is the innocent boy who really suffers rather than his faithless mother.
The Priest’s Cow
The story of a covetous priest who hands out advice in his sermon that to give one thing will ultimately result in the blessing of receiving two things results in the decision by a peasant husband and wife to give the priest their one and only cow. The cow is yoked to another already owned by the priest, but she is not happy with her new accommodations and instead finds her way back home—with the priest’s cow still in tow. Thus, the sermon proves ironically true as the peasants which had only one cow, now have two and the priest who had one cow now has none.
Hold Your Tongue
“The Man Who Had a Quarrelsome Wife” qualifies as one of the shortest stories found in collections of fabliaux. It is short because it is constructed of only the story and the moral. The story is about an argument between a husband and wife over whether a certain pasture had been mown or clipped. On this issue, the husband finally becomes fed up with his wife’s contrary nature and cuts off her tongue. Overcome with the delight of a decisive victory, the husband demands one last time that the wife admit it was mown and not cut only to find that that his rash act has an ironic dimension: unable to speak the words, she holds fast to her opinion by raising her hand, extending two fingers, and making a cutting gesture indicating scissors.
