The Golden Goose
The story.
Once upon a time there was a man who had 3 sons. The eldest son was sent to the forest to chop wood from a tree. In the forest he met a little grey man who asked for something to drink and something to eat, but the eldest son didn’t give him anything. While the eldest son was chopping the wood, he cut himself in his arm and he went home. The next day, the second son went to the forest to chop wood, and he also saw the little grey man, but didn’t give him anything. The next day Simpleton, the third son, could go to the forest. Everyone always made jokes about him and his father thought he couldn’t chop the trees, but he let him go because otherwise they wouldn’t have wood. The third son also met the little grey man. He begged for food and water and the third son gave him the food he had with him. The little grey man told him that he would be rewarded for what he did. Simpleton had to chop a tree and between the roots he saw a golden goose.
Three daughters passed Simpleton while was walking with the goose. They all wanted a golden feather of the goose. The oldest daughter grabbed the goose, but her hands got stuck on the goose. The second daughter tried to pull her sister away but she stuck on her sister. The third daughter did exactly the same, and Simpleton walked on with the daughters and his goose. While they were walking more and more people were stuck on each other. They all arrived in a city where they made a princess smile for the very first time in a very long time. Because Simpleton made the princess smile, he could marry her, but the king wasn’t happy about this. The king said that he had to find someone who can drink really much wine and after that he still had to eat a whole bread. Simpleton thought about the little grey man at the tree. Maybe he could help him.
When Simpleton comes at the tree, he sees a man who was very thirsty and hungry. He told him: ‘If you come with me, you can eat and drink as much as you want.’ When they came back, the man drank all the wine the king told him to drink, and after that he ate the whole bread. Now the king had to allow Simpleton to marry his daughter, and so he did. They got married and when the king died, he owned all the land that first belonged to the king. And the brothers still had to live in the small house, with the grumpy dad.
Background.
Writer.
The story of the golden goose is written by the brothers Grimm, two German brothers. The brothers together wrote many fairy tales, for example: The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, Hansel and Gretel, Mother Hulda, The Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel. The story was written in the book Kinder- und Hausmärchen, and it was published in 1812.
Enviorment.
The story takes part in a forest near the house of the father of the 3 sons. Later, when Simpleton found the goose, they went to the city where the princes lived. When he married her, Simpleton is going to be the king of the bpiece of land that he got from the father of the princes.
Culture.
The story doesn't really mention anyting about culture or religion, but you can see that the father thinks that the oldest son is the best, the second a little bit less, and theb last one is actually nothing. I think that that is a kind of culture, because if the father would die for example, the oldest son would get the most land, the sencond a little bit less, and the last one would get almost nothing.
Lesson
Norms and values.
If you do good things to someone, they'll respect you and sometimes they'll even do or give something back to you.
Lesson.
The lesson of the fairy tale is that if you respect someone, or do something good to someone, they'll respect you, or even do something back. It learns you to be nice to everyone and that'll help you in the rest of your life.
Pictures.
Comparison.
The golden goose, De gouden gans, Die goldene Gans, El ganso de oro, L'oca d'oro, O Ganso de Ouro,
黄金のガチョウ.
In all countries the story of the golden goose is the same. The only things that change are the names, because otherwise children can't read the fairy tales. In some versions the bread is cake, and in some versions Simpleton doesn't marry the princes, but that depents on the writer and not on the country.
About us.
We are two girls, Aukje and Milou, and we're both 14 years old. We live in Holland and we go to school at Grotius College in Delft. For a project we had to write things about a fairy tale so we chose the golden goose. We really like the fairy tale because it has a nice story and a good lesson in it. We never knew the fairy tale until we had this project. We really liked making this site and we also liked the trip to the Efteling.
