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Baillif (Herry)

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Mine host in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. When the poet began the second “Fit” of the Rime of Sir Thopas, Herry Baillif interrupts him with unmitigated contempt:—

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“‘No mor of this, for Goddes dignitie!ʹ

Quod our host, ‘for thou makest me

So wery … that

Mine eerës aken for thy nasty speeche.ʹ”

Verse 15327.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.