Reading Notes, Jataka Tales, Part A: The Golden Goose

The mother picking the feathers off of the goose.

(Source: The Baldwin Project)

The Golden Goose

Once upon a time there was a goose that had feathers that were made out of pure gold. The goose lived on the banks of a river and by the river, lived a very poor woman who had two daughters. He could see the woman struggling to make ends meet when she could not provide food or clothing for her daughters and he thought about what he could do to help them. He realized that his feathers were very valuable so he decided that if he gave the woman his feathers one after another, she could sell them and then she and her daughters could live a comfortable life. He walked into their home and the woman said, "What are you doing here? We have nothing for you. We do not even have anything for ourselves." The goose said, "I can change that. If you want me feathers one by one to sell and make ends meet, I will give them to you."

He gave the mother a feather and then he left. He would come back to give her another feather every once in a while and then leave again. One day, the mother said to her daughters, "How can we continue to depend on this goose for our livelihoods if we do not know if he will return the next time we need him. Let's take all of his feathers the next time he comes here." The daughters were skeptical of hurting the goose, as he had been their only source of hope in the world, but the greedy mother made them help her grab him the next time he came to their home. She made the girls hold him down as she plucked off every one of his feathers. She collected all of the feathers in a basket and set them down onto a counter and right before her eyes, all of the goose's feathers grew back as white normal feathers and all of the feathers in her basket also turned into white feathers. The goose escaped and never returned again.

Source: Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt (1912)