The Goose With the Golden Eggs English with Fairy Tales

The Goose With the Golden Eggs

The Goose With the Golden Eggs

Available in the public domain through Gutenberg Project

One day a countryman going to the nest of his Goose found there an egg all yellow and glittering. When he took it up it was as heavy as lead and he was going to throw it away, because he thought a trick had been played upon him. But he took it home on second thoughts, and soon found to his delight that it was an egg of pure gold. Every morning the same thing occurred, and he soon became rich by selling his eggs. As he grew rich he grew greedy; and thinking to get at once all the gold the Goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find nothing.

Greed oft o’er reaches itself.

Those who have plenty want more and so lose all they have.

Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

The idiom above means, don’t destroy something which is beneficial.

New words and expressions

1. countryman: someone who lives in the country rather than a city or town
2. glittering: shining like gold
3. lead: a soft heavy gray metal that is poisonous
4. trick: ploy, joke, prank
5. delight: pleasure, happiness, enjoyment
6. pure gold: 100% gold
7. occurred: happened, took place
8. lay an egg: put an egg

Another version of the story

The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs

There was once a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg.

The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich. But it was not long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough.

Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the Goose and cutting it open. But when the deed was done, not a single golden egg did he find, and his precious Goose was dead.