Historie of the Four Sonnes of Aymon_. It has been
reprinted for the Early English Text Society, ably
edited by Miss Octavia Richardson.

[150] A slightly different version is found in _A Hundred Mery
Talys_, No. lxix, "Of the franklyns sonne that cam to
take orders." The bishop says that Noah had three sons,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth;--who was the father of Japheth?
When the "scholar" returns home and tells his father how
he had been puzzled by the bishop, he endeavours to
enlighten his son thus: "Here is Colle, my dog, that
hath three whelps; must not these three whelps have
Colle for their sire?" Going back to the bishop, he
informs his lordship that the father of Japheth was
"Colle, my father's dogge."

The same author asks who but the churchmen of those days of ignorance
corrupted and perverted the text of the New Testament? Thus, in the
parable of the lost piece of money, _evertit domum_, "she overturned the
house," was substituted for _everrit domum_, "she _swept_ the house."
And in the Acts of the Apostles, where Saul (or Paul) is described as
being let down from the house on the wall of Damascus in a basket, for
_demissus per sportam_ was substituted _demissus per portam_, a
correction which called forth a rather witty Latin epigram to this
effect:

This way the other day did pass
As jolly a carpenter as ever was;
So strangely skilful in his trade,
That of a _basket_ a _door_ he made.