She deliberately interrupts the flow of her own narrative to examine Jewish views on the Eucharist. Host desecration tales vary in detail from time to time and from place to place. But there are common elements to most of them. Usually the Jew accused of acquiring the host is male, usually he does so through the agency of a Christian woman of low social status. Sometimes the story claims that the host is tested to see whether or not it is the flesh and blood of Christ as the institutional Church claimed.
Many versions claim that the consecrated wafer is tortured as a reeanactment of the crucifixion.
Many have Jewish women and children convert when they supposedly see how the water bleeds. Christian crowds are often depicted as honest folk who bring the alleged Jewish and Christian culprits to justice. The action of the Christian onlookers would denote the restoration of order which usually resulted in the erection of a chapel to store the rescued bleeding host. Chapels were often built in the place where a synagogue had been burnt to the ground. Rubin sees the tales as containing easily evocative material that would resonate with common Christian experience.