The Golden Goose

Once upon a time, in a village on the edge of a pine wood, there lived a man with three sons, and everybody called the youngest Dummling, which was neither kind nor accurate. The eldest went out to cut wood, and his mother gave him a fine cake and a bottle of wine. In the forest a small grey old man asked him to share. "Certainly not," said the eldest, and walked on. And the axe slipped that afternoon, and he came home with a cut hand and no wood. The second son went, with a fine cake and a bottle of wine, met the same old man, said much the same thing, and came home in much the same state. Then Dummling asked whether he might go. They laughed, and gave him a cake baked in the ashes and a bottle of sour beer, and off he went. He met the old man too. "Share with me," said the old man, "for I am very hungry." "A poor sort of lunch," said Dummling, "but you are welcome to half of it." And when he opened the cloth the cake was a good one and the beer was wine. They ate it together on a log. "Cut down that old tree," said the old man, "and see what is in the roots." In the roots was a goose with feathers of solid gold. Dummling tucked her under his arm and took a room at an inn in the next village. The innkeeper had three daughters, and each thought one gold feather would never be missed. The eldest took hold of the goose, and found that she could not let go. The second came to help her, and touched her sister, and stuck fast. The third came to help them both, and stuck to the second. They spent the whole night like that, and in the morning Dummling picked up the goose and walked out, and the three had to run along behind. They went straight through the village in a line. The parson shouted that it was disgraceful, and caught the youngest by the sleeve, and stuck. The sexton grabbed the parson's coat, and stuck. Two labourers came out of a field to help, and stuck as well. Seven of them, running down the road behind a goose. Now, in the city beyond the wood there was a king with a daughter who had never laughed in her life, and it worried him a great deal. He had said that whoever made her laugh might marry her, and a good many people had tried very hard and made everything worse. Dummling came round the corner with seven people running behind him and the parson still shouting. The princess looked out of the window. She laughed until she had to sit down on the floor. They were married, and the goose was let go in the palace garden, and everybody came unstuck at last, and the parson never quite lived it down. The end.