"The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs" is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 87 in the Perry Index, a story that also has a number of Eastern analogues. Many other stories contain geese that lay golden eggs, though certain versions change them for hens or other birds that lay golden eggs. The tale has given rise to the idiom 'killing the goose that lays the golden eggs', which refers to the short-sighted destruction of a valuable resource, or to an unprofitable action motivated by greed.
Avianus and Caxton tell different stories of a goose that lays a golden egg, where other versions have a hen, [1] as in Townsend: "A cottager and his wife had a Hen that laid a golden egg every day. They supposed that the Hen must contain a great lump of gold in its inside, and in order to get the gold they killed [her]. Having done so, they found to their surprise that the Hen differed in no respect from their other hens. The foolish pair, thus hoping to become rich all at once, deprived themselves of the gain of which they were assured day by day." [2]
In early tellings, there is sometimes a commentary warning against greed rather than a pithy moral. This is so in Jean de La Fontaine's fable of La Poule aux oeufs d'or (Fables V.13), [3] which begins with the sentiment that 'Greed loses all by striving all to gain' and comments at the end that the story can be applied to those who become poor by trying to outreach themselves. It is only later that the morals most often quoted today began to appear. These are 'Greed oft o'er reaches itself' (Joseph Jacobs, 1894) [4] and 'Much wants more and loses all' (Samuel Croxall, 1722). [5] It is notable also that these are stories told of a goose rather than a hen.
The English idiom "Kill not the goose that lays the golden egg", [6] sometimes shortened to "killing the golden goose", derives from this fable. It is generally used of a short-sighted action that destroys the profitability of an asset. Caxton's version of the story has the goose's owner demand that it lay two eggs a day; when it replied that it could not, the owner killed it. [7] The same lesson is taught by Ignacy Krasicki's different fable of "The Farmer":
A farmer, bent on doubling the profits from his land,
Proceeded to set his soil a two-harvest demand.
Too intent thus on profit, harm himself he must needs:
Instead of corn, he now reaps corn-cockle and weeds.
There is another variant on the story, recorded by Syntipas (Perry Index 58) and appearing in Roger L'Estrange's 1692 telling as "A Woman and a Fat Hen" (Fable 87): A good Woman had a Hen that laid her every day an Egg. Now she fansy'd to her self, that upon a larger Allowance of Corn, this Hen might be brought in time to lay twice a day. She try'd the Experiment; but the Hen grew fat upon't, and gave quite over laying. His comment on this is that 'we should set Bounds to our Desires, and content our selves when we are well, for fear of losing what we had.' Another of Aesop's fables with the moral of wanting more and losing everything is The Dog and the Bone .
An Eastern analogue is found in the Suvannahamsa Jataka, [8] which appears in the fourth section of the Buddhist book of monastic discipline ( Vinaya ). In this the father of a poor family is reborn as a swan with golden feathers and invites them to pluck and sell a single feather from his wings to support themselves, returning occasionally to allow them another. The greedy mother of the family eventually plucks all the feathers at once, but they then turn to ordinary feathers; when the swan recovers its feathers they too are no longer gold. [9] The moral drawn there is:
Contented be, nor itch for further store.
They seized the swan – but had its gold no more.
North of India, in the formerly Persian territory of Sogdiana, it was the Greek version of the story that was known. Among the 8th-century murals in Panjakent, in the western Sugdh province of Tajikistan, there is a panel from room 1, sector 21, representing a series of scenes moving from right to left where it is possible to recognize the same person first in the act of checking a golden egg and later killing the animal in order to get more eggs, only to understand the stupidity of his idea at the very end of the sequence. A local version of the story still persists in the area but ends differently with the main character eventually becoming a king. [10]
In the Mahabharata a story is recounted of wild birds that spit gold, and were discovered by a man who soon strangled them "out of greed". [11]
The French text was set as the fourth of Rudolf Koumans' Vijf fabels van La Fontaine for children's choir and orchestra (Op. 25 1968). Yassen Vodenitcharov (1964-) has created a chamber opera from the story (2004) and Vladimir Cosma included the poem as the ninth piece in Eh bien ! Dansez maintenant (2006), a light-hearted interpretation for narrator and orchestra in the style of a foxtrot. [12]
The majority of illustrations of "The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs" picture the farmer despairing after discovering that he has killed the goose to no purpose. It was also one of several fables applied to political issues by the American illustrator Thomas Nast. Captioned Always killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, it appeared in Harpers Weekly for March 16, 1878. [13] There the picture of the baffled farmer, advised by a 'Communistic Statesman', referred to the rail strike of 1877. The farmer stands for the politically driven union members whose wife and children sorrow in the background.
Two postage stamps have also featured the fable. Burundi's 1987 set of children's tales uses Gustave Doré's picture of the despairing farmer holding the body of the slaughtered goose (see above). [14] The fable later appears on the 73 pence value from a Jersey set celebrating the bicentenary of Hans Christian Andersen in 2005, although "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg" never figured among his stories. [15]
The theme of a duck, goose or hen laying a golden egg, but not the traditional plot line, was taken up in films in both the United States and Russia. In Golden Yeggs (Warner Bros, 1950) it was given cartoon treatment, [16] while it provided a comedy MacGuffin in The Million Dollar Duck (Walt Disney Productions, 1971). The 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory features geese laying golden eggs filled with chocolate. [17] The Russian comedy Assia and the Hen with the Golden Eggs (Kurochka Ryaba, 1994) takes a slightly satirical look at small village jealousy in post-Soviet times. [18]
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.
Golden Yeggs is a 1950 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng. The cartoon was released on August 5, 1950, and stars Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. A forerunner of the Rocky and Mugsy characters appear, with Rocky already in his present-day form.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 210 in the Perry Index. From it is derived the English idiom "to cry wolf", defined as "to give a false alarm" in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and glossed by the Oxford English Dictionary as meaning to make false claims, with the result that subsequent true claims are disbelieved.
"The Tortoise and the Hare" is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 226 in the Perry Index. The account of a race between unequal partners has attracted conflicting interpretations. The fable itself is a variant of a common folktale theme in which ingenuity and trickery are employed to overcome a stronger opponent.
"The Golden Goose" is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm.
The story and metaphor of The Dog in the Manger derives from an old Greek fable which has been transmitted in several different versions. Interpreted variously over the centuries, the metaphor is now used to speak of one who spitefully prevents others from having something for which one has no use. Although the story was ascribed to Aesop's Fables in the 15th century, there is no ancient source that does so.
The lion's share is an idiomatic expression which now refers to the major share of something. The phrase derives from the plot of a number of fables ascribed to Aesop and is used here as their generic title. There are two main types of story, which exist in several different versions. Other fables exist in the East that feature division of prey in such a way that the divider gains the greater part - or even the whole. In English the phrase used in the sense of nearly all only appeared at the end of the 18th century; the French equivalent, le partage du lion, is recorded from the start of that century, following La Fontaine's version of the fable.
"Pâté de Foie Gras" is a 1956 science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, originally published by Astounding Science Fiction.
A domestic goose is a goose that humans have domesticated and kept for their meat, eggs, or down feathers, or as companion animals. Domestic geese have been derived through selective breeding from the wild greylag goose and swan goose.
Aesop's Fables is a series of animated short subjects, created by American cartoonist Paul Terry. Produced from 1921 to 1934, the series includes The Window Washers (1925), Scrambled Eggs (1926), Small Town Sheriff (1927), Dinner Time (1928), and Gypped in Egypt (1930). Dinner Time is the first cartoon with a synchronized soundtrack ever released to the public.
The Farmer and the Viper is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 176 in the Perry Index. It has the moral that kindness to evil will be met by betrayal and is the source of the idiom "to nourish a viper in one's bosom". The fable is not to be confused with The Snake and the Farmer, which looks back to a situation when friendship was possible between the two.
The Tortoise and the Birds is a fable of probable folk origin, early versions of which are found in both India and Greece. There are also African variants. The moral lessons to be learned from these differ and depend on the context in which they are told.
The Fox and the Sick Lion is one of Aesop's Fables, well known from Classical times and numbered 142 in the Perry Index. There is also an Indian analogue. Interpretations of the story's meaning have differed widely in the course of two and a half millennia.
The Cock, the Dog and the Fox is one of Aesop's Fables and appears as number 252 in the Perry Index. Although it has similarities with other fables where a predator flatters a bird, such as The Fox and the Crow and Chanticleer and the Fox, in this one the cock is the victor rather than victim. There are also Eastern variants of this story.
The Ass and the Pig is one of Aesop's Fables that was never adopted in the West but has Eastern variants that remain popular. Their general teaching is that the easy life and seeming good fortune of others conceal a threat to their welfare.
The Fox and the Weasel is a title used to cover a complex of fables in which a number of other animals figure in a story with the same basic situation involving the unfortunate effects of greed. Of Greek origin, it is counted as one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 24 in the Perry Index.
"The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs" is one of the best known Aesop's Fables
The Snake and the Farmer is a fable attributed to Aesop, of which there are ancient variants and several more from both Europe and India dating from Mediaeval times. The story is classed as Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 285D, and its theme is that a broken friendship cannot be mended. While this fable does admit the possibility of a mutually beneficial relationship between man and snake, the similarly titled The Farmer and the Viper denies it.
The Hen That Laid the Golden Eggs, also known as The Hen with the Golden Eggs, is a 1905 French silent trick film directed by Gaston Velle. The film is inspired by the eponymous fable by Jean de La Fontaine, itself based on Aesop's fable The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs.
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