Positioned within the context of cognitive theory of the twelfth century, namely Richard of St. Victor's Benjamin Minor, is a figure for the Chaucerian imagination I am calling "Child Chaucer." Based on an obscure manuscript illumination of the author as a boy, Child Chaucer represents the élan vital that animates the voices of naïve narrators such as Geffrey in Sir Thopas, the Squire, and speakers of the House of Fame, the Parliament of Fowls, An ABC, and the Legend of Good Women. When Chaucer's narrators exhibit a propensity for getting carried away by the exuberance of storytelling, or slyly indicting readers for their shortcomings, or mischievously manipulating the precepts of Nature, Child Chaucer is at play.