An Adaptation to Chaucer's Canterbury tales- The Pardoner's tale. It was an assignment I was given in my Literature and Composition class. An old Native American women tells her grandchildren a story about the Cardinal, the Crow, and the Sparrow and how each were destroyed by envy. She tells this tale in hopes that they will learn the lesson well and not be given to envy and learn to live with what they have and to, more importantly, LOVE what the have.