The miller tells this tale drunk, but it goes something like this. There is an old man named john who has very beautiful 18 year old wife who is overprotective of, but for good reason. Everyone else is in love with her especially a young man that lived at John’s place named Nicolas. He was a young astrologer and a master at love. He can see the beauty in Alisoun and would like to lay with her. So one day the john leaves and Nick makes his move and begins to flirt with her, but when he goes to grab her she tells him she will scream. But after Nicolas uses some sweet talk on her she gives in and decides to lay with him, but she does not want John to find out. Nick reassures Alisoun that he can outwit the carpenter. So Nicolas makes a plan so that Alisoun can stay one night with him. He tells the carpenter that he has had a dream of a great flood coming and that they should be prepared for it to come. Nick tells him that he should hang three big tubs from the roof of the barn and also put an ax in one of them, so when the floods come they can hack through the ropes then float away in safety. They all crawl up in the tubes to sleep and when john falls asleep Nick and Alisoun sneak back to john house. But Alisoun also has one other lover named Absolon. Absolon is always playing music, giving gifts, and doing many other things for Alisoun trying to win her heart. He comes buy that night and sees Alisoun in the house and calls out for a kiss. So in the dark she walks over bends over and tells absolon to give her a kiss. When he leans in he ends up kissing her but. This infuriates Absolon so he runs and gets a hot brand. When he calls out for a kiss again Nicolas walks over and bands over this time. Absolon hits him with the hot brand, Nicolas starts calling out for “water, water”. John heres this and thinks it means the flood is coming, he chops through the ropes and the tub drops. When it hits john makes a loud ruckus and breaks his leg. The whole town comes over to see what is going on. When John tells them what happens they start asking Nick and Alisoun if that was true, they tell everyone that they never told John anything about the flood and he is a delusional old man.