"Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, / ... Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, / And sit in halle and talken balderdashes." At least that's what P.C. Doherty seems to think. Theoretically, one of the tales told by The Man of Law, this lump of coal is a rude enough punishment for any bad boy or girl, but to wrap it inside the celestial stockings of The Canterbury Tales is to commit the sin of the Pardoner, in the words of the Host: "And swere it were a relyk of a seint, / Though it were with thy fundement depeint!" In close modern English, "What a piece of crap!" ( )