Golden Goose
Encyclopedia
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
collected by the Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
(Tale 64).
Story
The hero is the youngest of three brothers, given the nickname Dummling. His eldest brother is sent into the forest to chop wood, fortified with a rich cake and a bottle of wine. He meets a little gray man who begs a morsel to eat and a swallow of ale but is rebuffed. The eldest brother meets an accident and is taken home. The second brother meets a similar fate. Dummling, sent out with a biscuit cooked in the ashes of the hearth and soured beer, is generous with the little old man and is rewarded with a golden goose. The goose has been discovered within the roots of the tree chosen by the little gray man and felled by Dummling.With the goose under his arm, Dummling heads for an inn, where, as soon as his back is turned, the innkeeper's daughter attempts to pluck just one of the feathers of pure gold, and is stuck fast. Her sister, coming to help her, is stuck fast too. And the youngest, determined not to be left out of the riches, is stuck to the second. Dummling makes his way to the castle, and each person who attempts to interfere is joined to the unwilling parade: the parson, his sexton, and two laborers.
In the castle lives the king with the Princess who has never laughed. But the despondent Princess, sitting by the window and glimpsing the parade staggering after Dummling and his golden goose, laughs until she cries. Some versions include an additional three trials. Dummling succeeds in all with the help of his little gray friend and finally wins the princess, living happily ever after.
Literary Examination of the Story
Several elements in its narrative structure follow formulaic elements in the methodology that was formulated by Antti AarneAntti Aarne
Antti Amatus Aarne was a Finnish folklorist.-Background:Aarne was the student of Julius Krohn and his son Kaarle Krohn...
and his translator Stith Thompson
Stith Thompson
Stith Thompson was an American scholar of folklore. He is the "Thompson" of the Aarne-Thompson classification system.- Biography :...
(the Aarne-Thompson classification system
Aarne-Thompson classification system
The Aarne–Thompson classification system is a system for classifying folktales. First developed by Antti Aarne and published in 1910, it was translated and enlarged by Stith Thompson...
) and by the earlier, more generalized method of Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a Russian and Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.- Biography :...
, who used Russian folk tales. Other familiar irreducible narrative myth elements ("mytheme
Mytheme
In the study of mythology, a mytheme is the essential kernel of a myth—an irreducible, unchanging element, a minimal unit that is always found shared with other, related mythemes and reassembled in various ways—"bundled" was Claude Lévi-Strauss's image— or linked in more...
s") will be quickly recognized.
The hero is the youngest of three brothers (the Simpleton; the Least of Three), given the nickname Dummling ("little fool"). His eldest brother is sent into the forest to chop wood (the Task), fortified with a rich cake and a bottle of wine. He meets a little gray man (the Disguised Helper) who begs a morsel to eat and a swallow of ale but is rebuffed. The eldest brother meets an accident and is taken home. The second brother meets a similar fate. Dummling, sent out with a biscuit cooked in the ashes of the hearth and soured beer, is generous with the little old man and is rewarded with a golden goose (the Fairy Gift).
The goose has been discovered within the roots of the tree chosen by the little gray man and felled by Dummling. Tellers of this tale could not have been aware of the imprisonment of Osiris
Osiris
Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...
. For archaic Greek spirits within oak trees, see Dryad
Dryad
Dryads are tree nymphs in Greek mythology. In Greek drys signifies 'oak,' from an Indo-European root *derew- 'tree' or 'wood'. Thus Dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, though the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general...
s.
With the goose under his arm, Dummling heads for an inn, where, as soon as his back is turned, the innkeeper's daughter attempts to pluck just one of the feathers of pure gold, and is stuck fast (Greed A-T Type 68A; Justice is Served). Her sister, coming to help her, is stuck fast too. And the youngest (Least of Three), determined not to be left out of the riches, is stuck to the second. Dummling makes his way to the castle, and each person who attempts to interfere is joined to the unwilling parade: the parson, his sexton, and two laborers.
In the castle lives the king with the Princess (the Princess Prize) who has never laughed. But the despondent Princess, sitting by the window and glimpsing the parade staggering after Dummling and his golden goose, laughs until she cries. Dummling, after three more impossible trials including finding a ship that sails on land and sea, sometimes inserted in the tale, in each of which he is assisted by the little gray man, wins the Princess and everyone lives happily ever after.
"The Golden Goose" falls in Aarne-Thompson Type 571, All Stick Together; the appended episode is of A-T Type 513B, The Land-and-Water Ship.
Folklorist D.L. Ashliman has pointed out other versions of a Golden Fowl theme: The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs
The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs
Killing The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs is among the best known of Aesop's Fables and use of the phrase has become idiomatic of an unprofitable action motivated by greed.-The story and its moral:...
(Aesop
Aesop
Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
); The Golden Mallard (from the Jataka
Jataka
The Jātakas refer to a voluminous body of literature native to India concerning the previous births of the Buddha....
stories of the Buddha's former births); the Huma bird (Persia).
Modern interpretations
A musical version of The Golden Goose, written by Dieter Stegmann and Alexander S. BermangeAlexander S. Bermange
Alexander S. Bermange is an English musical theatre composer and lyricist. He has often served as musical director and pianist for his own productions. He is also a regular broadcaster on UK radio.-Career:...
was presented at the Amphitheater Park Schloss Philippsruhe, Hanau
Hanau
Hanau is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main. Its station is a major railway junction.- Geography :...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
as part of the Brothers Grimm Festival in 2006. It was also featured as an episode of the PC Game American McGee's Grimm
American McGee's Grimm
American McGee's Grimm is a 23-part episodic video game series based upon Grimm's Fairy Tales, designed by American McGee, developed by Spicy Horse and distributed online initially by GameTap starting July 31, 2008...
where the goose is 10 times its size and its victims have their bodies completely stuck to the goose rather than falling in a conga line as in the story.
See also
- The Princess Who Never SmiledThe Princess Who Never SmiledThe Princess Who Never Smiled or The Unsmiling Tsarevna is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.-Synopsis:...
- The Magic SwanThe Magic SwanThe Magic Swan is a European fairy tale collected by Hermann Kletke. Andrew Lang included it in The Green Fairy Book..-Synopsis:Two older brothers abused the youngest son. An old woman advised him to run away...
- PeruontoPeruontoPeruonto is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giambattista Basile in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone.It is Aarne-Thompson type 675. Other literary tales of this type are Straparola's "Peter The Fool" and Madame d'Aulnoy's The Dolphin...
External links
- SurLaLune's The Annotated Golden Goose
- Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household Tales, translated by Margaret Hunt, London: George BellGeorge Bell & SonsGeorge Bell & Sons was a book publishing house located in London, United Kingdom, from 1839 to 1986. It was founded by George Bell as an educational bookseller, with the intention of selling the output of London university presses; but became best known as an independent publisher of classics and...
, 1884. e-text - D.L. Ashliman, "The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Grimms' Fairy Tales)": gives Aarne-ThompsonAntti AarneAntti Amatus Aarne was a Finnish folklorist.-Background:Aarne was the student of Julius Krohn and his son Kaarle Krohn...
types