The flour is goon; ther is namoore to telle;
The bren, as I best kan, now moste I selle.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. With her youth gone and older age depriving her of her beauty and her vigor, the Wife of Bath uses two metaphors to describe the change in her life. The "flour" of her youth is no more, now she must sell herself as best she can as "bren" – bran made from grain husk, the hard outer layers of grain.