A very poor farmer called Edward used to dream all day long about becoming very rich. One morning he was in the milking shed - and dreaming about owning a large herd of cows - when his wife called to him: "Edward, just look what I’ve found! Oh, this must be the most wonderful day of our lives!"
As he turned to face his wife, Edward rubbed his eyes in disbelief. For there stood his wife, with a goose tucked under her right arm - and a perfect golden egg in her left hand. She laughed happily as she said, "No, no you’re not dreaming now. We really do have a goose that lays golden eggs. Ooh, just think how rich we’ll be if she lays and egg like this every day. We must give her the best treatment possible."
During the weeks that followed that’s exactly what they did. Each day they led her to the lush green grass by the village pond, and each night they settled her down on a bed of straw in a warm corner of the kitchen. And not a morning passed without the appearance of a golden egg.
Edward bought more land and more cows. But he knew he’d have to wait a long time before he became very rich.
"It’s too long," he finally announced one morning. "I’m tired of all this waiting. Our goose obviously has a huge collection of eggs inside her. I think we should take them all out now!"
His wife agreed. She no longer remembered how happy she had been the day she discovered the first golden egg. She handed over a knife and within a few seconds Edward had killed the goose - and cut it open.
Once again he rubbed his eyes in disbelief. But this time his wife didn’t laugh, because the dead goose didn’t contain a single egg. "Oh Edward!" she wailed. "Why were we so greedy? No matter how long we wait, we’ll never become rich now."
And from that day on Edward never dreamed about becoming rich again.
Story Time � 1984-1989 by Rubicon Press CC