'This Wenche Thikke'

ClaimA Tumblr post includes an accurate excerpt from Canterbury Tales, including “this wenche thikke” and “[I will not lie.]”ReportingAdvertisementsOn July 11 2021, a Facebook account shared Tumblr screenshots to a public group which purportedly excerpted a ribald verse that included phrases familiar to the modern ear, including “this wenche thikke” and “I wol nat lye” from one of the 14th-century Canterbury Tales stories:Screenshots were equally popular on Twitter:The Tumblr thread apparently began on June 8 2021, when u/bimbogollum shared an image of text reading “This wenche thikke”:After that, u/f-identity provided an image description for low-vision users, indicating the text was a “cropped image of medieval-stylized printed text,” implying that the earlier post was likely a meme placing modern language in an anachronistic format:Then u/bimbogollum thanked u/f-identity for appending a description, interjecting that the image was “not stylised, but actual Middle English,” “from The Canterbury Tales”:Thank you for adding this image description! Just wanted to clarify that it’s not stylised, but actual Middle English. The text is from The Canterbury Tales.Finally, on July 9 2021, u/kiralamouse added:Okay, had to track it down. It’s from the Reeve’s Tale, and it’s a description of a 20yo young woman:This wenche thikke and wel y-growen was,With camuse…
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