The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs

There was once a farmer who lived with his wife in a small house at the side of a dusty road. They had very little: a few hens, one thin cow and a grey goose that wandered around the yard. Most years, they barely got by.

One morning, the farmer went out to collect the eggs and found something shining in the goose's nest. It was an egg, heavy and yellow. When he took it into town, the jeweller told him it was solid gold. The farmer could hardly believe his luck. The next morning there was another one, and the morning after that, another.

For a whole year, the goose laid one golden egg every day, never more and never less. The farmer paid off all his debts, put a new roof on the house and bought plenty of fine clothes. His wife saved a little from each egg in a box under the bed, but the farmer spent most of his share as soon as it came in. Every evening, he looked at the goose and frowned. One egg a day no longer seemed like very much.

"Think about it," he said to his wife one night. "If the goose makes gold every day, she must be full of it inside. Why should we wait for a few eggs at a time, when we could have all of it now?" His wife begged him to leave the goose alone. "We have enough," she said. But the farmer couldn't get the idea out of his head.

The next morning, before the sun came up, he crept out to the yard with a knife. The goose looked up at him from her nest and made a soft sound. He didn't let himself think. He cut her open, and inside he found nothing at all: no gold, no shining eggs, only an ordinary goose, like any other.

When the sun rose, the farmer was still sitting in the yard. Beside him, the nest was empty. In his hand he held one gold coin, all that was left of his share of the day before.