The
Ploughman of
whom Chaucer remarked,
"A worker
true and very good was
he, Living in perfect peace and charity" protested that
riddles were not
for simple minds like his, but he
would show the good pilgrims, if they
willed it, one that he had frequently heard certain clever folk in his
own neighbourhood discuss.
"The
lord of the
manor in the part of Sussex
whence I come hath a plantation of sixteen fair oak trees, and they be
so
set out that they make twelve rows with four trees in every
row.
Once
on
a time a man of deep learning, who happened to be travelling in those
parts, did say that the sixteen trees might have been so planted that
they would make so many as fifteen straight rows, with four trees in
every row thereof.
Can
ye show me
how this might be?
Many have doubted
that 'twere possible to be done."
The
illustration
shows one of many
ways
of forming the twelve rows.
How can we make fifteen?
See
answer