The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs

Once there was a farmer and his wife who lived in a small cottage with a leaky roof.

They had a few chickens, a thin brown cow and one white goose. Every morning the farmer went out to the yard to see if the goose had laid an egg, so they could have something for breakfast.

Something shining

One morning, the farmer looked into the goose's nest, and he stopped.

There, in the straw, was an egg. But it was not white. It was yellow, and it shone in the sunlight.

He picked it up. It was very heavy.

"Wife!" he shouted. "Come quickly!"

His wife came running. She held the egg up to the light. She tapped it with her fingernail. It went tink.

"It's gold," she whispered. "Solid gold!"

They took the egg to the market in town and sold it. With the money, they bought bread, cheese, warm blankets and new boots. They even had enough left over to mend the leaky roof.

One egg a day

The next morning, the farmer hurried out to the nest. There was another golden egg.

And the next morning, there was another.

Every single day, the white goose laid one golden egg. Soon the farmer and his wife had a new roof, a new cart and a fine new coat each. They had plenty to eat. They had more than they needed.

But a strange thing happened. The more they had, the more they wanted.

"One egg a day," grumbled the farmer one evening. "Just one! At this rate, it will take years to become truly rich."

"I've been thinking the same thing," said his wife. "That goose must be full of gold inside. Why should we wait, day after day, for one little egg at a time?"

The farmer's eyes gleamed. "You're right," he said. "Tomorrow I'll catch that goose and squeeze out all the gold at once."

The goose flies away

The goose was sitting on her nest by the window. She had heard every word.

That night, while the farmer and his wife were asleep, she quietly stood up. She shook out her white feathers. She stretched her wide wings.

And when the first light came over the hills, she flew out over the yard, over the fields and far away, and she never came back.

In the morning, the farmer ran out to the yard. The nest was empty. There was no goose, and there was no golden egg.

He looked in the barn. He looked in the pond. He looked everywhere.

"Gone," he said, and sat down heavily on the step. "All gone."

His wife sat down next to him. For a long time, neither of them said anything.

What they learned

"We had a golden egg every day," said the farmer at last. "Every single day. And it wasn't enough for us."

"We wanted everything at once," said his wife. "So now we have nothing more at all."

They still had their new roof and their warm coats, so they were not poor any more. But they never forgot that morning. And whenever they saw a white goose flying over the fields, they remembered how lucky they had been, and how foolish.

About this story

This fable is credited to Aesop, the storyteller of ancient Greece. People still say "don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs" when someone risks losing something good by being too greedy. In older versions the story ends unhappily for the goose. This version is a shortened, gentler retelling for young readers.