A farmer lived with his family and had one goose, which he would collect eggs from each morning. One day, he bent over to pick up an egg, when he realised that it was hard, heavy and a glittering yellow. He almost threw it away, but instead went to show his wife. When they looked at the egg more closely, they realised that it was made of pure gold! The next day, the farmer and his wife waited feverishly for the next morning’s egg. Sure enough, the same thing occurred and the farmer soon became rich from selling his golden eggs. Every day, the farmer collected the golden egg from his goose and sold it as quickly as he could. The farmer soon became very greedy, and he was not happy with only one egg per day, so he decided to get all the eggs at once. He took the goose, killed it and opened it up to find the other eggs – however, he was dismayed to find nothing inside the goose. The greedy farmer lost his wealth, and he came to realise that his greed had over-reached itself, and he had suffered for his foolishness.
