“Is a cuckold made in the image of God?” asked the Burgundian.

“No,” said the Parisian, “because God was wise in this respect, that he took no wife; therefore is He happy through all eternity.”

“But,” said the maid-servant, “cuckolds are made in the image of God before they are horned.”

Then the three pilgrims began to curse women, saying that they were the cause of all the evils in the world.

“Their heads are as empty as helmets,” said the Burgundian.

“Their hearts are as straight as bill-hooks,” said the Parisian.

“Why are there so many men pilgrims and so few women pilgrims?” said the German baron.

“Their cursed member never sins,” replied the Parisian; “it knows neither father nor mother, the commandments of God, nor those of the Church, neither laws divine or human:  their member knows no doctrine, understands no heresies, and cannot be blamed; it is innocent of all, and always on the laugh; its understanding is nil; and for this reason do I hold it in utter detestation.”

“I also,” said the Burgundian, “and I begin to understand the different reading by a learned man of the verses of the Bible, in which the account of the creation is given.  In this Commentary, which in my country we call a Noel, lies the reason of imperfection of this feature of women, of which, different to that of other females, no man can slake the thirst, such diabolical heat existing there.  In this Noel is stated that the Lord God, having turned his head to look at a donkey, who had brayed for the first time in his Paradise, while he was manufacturing Eve, the devil seized this moment to put his finger into this divine creature, and made a warm wound, which the Lord took care to close with a stitch, from which comes the maid.  By means of this frenum, the woman should remain closed, and children be made in the same manner in which God made the angels, by a pleasure far above carnal pleasure as the heaven is above the earth.  Observing this closing, the devil, wild at being done, pinched the Sieur Adam, who was asleep, by the skin, and stretched a portion of it out in imitation of his diabolical tail; but as the father of man was on his back this appendage came out in front.  Thus these two productions of the devil had the desire to reunite themselves, following the law of similarities which God had laid down for the conduct of the world.  From this came the first sin and the sorrows of the human race, because God, noticing the devil’s work, determined to see what would come of it.”

The servant declared that they were quite correct in the statements, for that woman was a bad animal, and that she herself knew some who were better under the ground than on it.  The pilgrims, noticing then how pretty the girl was, were afraid of breaking their vows, and went straight to bed.  The girl went and told her mistress she was harbouring infidels, and told her what they had said about women.