Fairy Tale Junction

A Compendium of Fairy Tales I remember
...for my children

The Goose Who Laid the Golden Eggs

An Aesop Fable

From the 1917 editon of New Barnes Readers Book Two
Illustration by Mabel B. Hill

Once upon a time there lived an old woman who had a number of hens, ducks, and geese. She used to send her little daughter to the meadow every day to take care of the ducks and geese.

But she had one goose that she never allowed with the others. This one had a little house and yard of its own. It was such a wonderful goose that the old woman was afraid of losing it.

Each day this goose laid a large golden egg. The woman could hardly wait for the new day to come, she was so eager to get the golden egg.

At last she said to herself, "I will kill the goose and get the gold all at once."

But when she had killed the goose she found that it was just like all the other geese.

In her haste to become rich, she had become poor.

Moral: Greed destroys the source of good.

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