A whore named Sally Greensleeves died in a tavern on the way to York. One day she was fine if a bit high colored, next she was dead. She'd been on her way to York with her special wagon.
The inn keeper's name was Janet Bly, and she thought she might as well keep the wagon since the whore owed her two days board and lodging and much inconvenience.
In the early morning she took a look at the wagon. A box on wheels. Inside a giant copper boiler with a fire box under it. A horse too. A quiet bay. Janet was a big woman, not young, with eyes barely visible between the puffy lids. A left upper lip that curled upward in perpetual derision. A bath wagon! Treasure indeed...In her mind she reviewed the young girls of the town. She needed a girl, maybe two. In the end she sold the wagon. She had enough trouble. She sold the wagon to a hunchback who took the wagon on to York where it was awaited eagerly by certain merchants and ecclesiastics of the town.
The hunch back's daughter entertained any and all who had gold enough. A hot bath and really clean sex was rare indeed at that time. Money was pouring in. The hunch back was beside himself with joy. He hired a boy to occasionally change the water and keep the temperature just right.
One night the hunch back left the boy alone and went carousing with his daughter. Thinking there was no one in it, the boy stoked up the fire under the copper bath and went off to buy mushy peas and beer.
Unfortunately he had forgotten the five drunken monks, snoring and shameless after merry entertainment earlier in the day.
It was a traveling man who first sang the sad song of the five monks of York boiled to death by an evil hunch back. The song was enjoyed in the taverns of the north for several centuries. Janet Bly first heard it as she changed bed linen. She paused in her work to listen, and her sardonic lip curled so high it touched her nose.