The Goose that laid the Golden Eggs
There was once a farmer and his wife who had a goose.
The goose laid eggs every morning but eventually the goose became old and died. So the farmer and
his wife went to the market to buy a new one. They couple spent a long time looking around the market
before settling on a rather fine-looking goose. Happy with their choice they took it back home.
The next morning when the couple woke up, the farmer went to collect the eggs.
Imagine his surprise when he looked into the nest and saw that the egg that lay there was
yellow and shiny! He picked it up and noticed immediately how heavy it was.
This was not a regular goose-egg! The farmer’s first thought was to throw the egg away and go
back to the market to complain. Someone must have played a trick on him. But he went back to the
farmhouse and showed the strange egg to his wife. “Goodness me,” cried his wife in excitement
after examining the egg, “this egg must be made of pure gold.
Look how it glitters and shines! Feel how heavy it weighs in your hand! What a stroke of luck!”
The next morning the farmer went out to collect the eggs again.
When he looked into the goose’s nest he found another shiny golden egg. Full of excitement,
he showed it to his wife and they agreed that they would take it to market
and see if they could sell it. They were amazed by how much money the glittering egg fetched.
“We are going to be rich!” shouted the farmer, “If this goose keeps laying golden eggs like this
then we will soon have plenty of money and be able to buy whatever our hearts desire!”
So it continued. Each morning the farmer would wake up
and check the nest. And each morning there would be a shiny, golden egg waiting for him.
The farmer and his wife would take the egg to market and come back with bags of coins.
But there was a problem. The farmer and his wife were spendthrifts, and as soon as they
received the bags of coins, they spent them. And the goose would lay just one golden egg a day.
The couple began to get greedy. “This goose does not lay eggs fast enough,” complained the farmer.
He thought for a while before saying to his wife, “I have had a thought. This goose
lays one golden egg each day. Just think of all of the eggs that must be inside it, just waiting
to be laid. I say that we cut the goose open and pull out all of those shiny eggs in one go.
If we take them all to market at the same time, we will be rolling in money!”
The farmer’s wife agreed. The couple imagined bags of coins piled up high in their farmhouse kitchen.
The farmer was counting his riches in his imagination and dreaming of all of
the things they would buy. But excitement soon led to disappointment when they cut open the
goose and found that no golden eggs lay inside. Each one blamed the other for their misfortune.
“You fool!” shouted the farmer’s wife. “Twit!” retorted the farmer. The pair began to cry.
The very next day the farmer and his wife decided to go to the market and buy a new goose, hoping
that this one would also lay golden eggs. But to their disappointment the goose did not. They felt
very foolish and began to regret their mistake of cutting open the goose that laid the golden eggs.
For they realised that they had been greedy and that, not only had they not got rich all at once,
but they had also lost everything. “I have learnt my lesson,” cried the farmer,
“by being greedy we have ended up with even less than we started with.”
The farmer and his wife never did get rich again, but lived a modest life on their little farm
with their goose and all of their other animals, dreaming of the life that could have been theirs.