Week 13 Story

The Golden Goose

The Golden Swan
Source: My India

There was this family that lived in a forest, a father, mother, and three children. One day the father called all the family into the main room of the house they all lived in and told them he had to leave for a little while. The mother was confused as to why the father had to leave as he had a job and was not in need of searching for a new one.

The father said, “I have to leave and when I come back, I will bring a lot more riches to this family than my current job.”

The mother and the children were still confused, but they all accepted and didn’t try to dig any deeper as to why the father had to leave them without any warning. The father the next day took off down the road to leave wherever the voice in his head would lead him. The next day the father ran into a fairy in the forest he was passing through and the fairy stopped him in his tracks.

The fairy asked, “why are you here walking through this forest you look like a family man?”

The father replied, “I was told the other day from a voice that I needed to travel and that I would come across something that would bring my family riches we have never had.”

The fairy was intrigued by this and waved her wand and turned the father into a goose made of golden feathers. The fairy said, “Now you are golden and of value to your family go to them and give them a feather.”

The father thanked the fairy and flew to his family as fast as his new golden feathers could go. When he arrived, the children were swinging under the oak tree outside and saw the goose and yelled for their mother. The mother came running outside to find the goose and was in awe of the goose when she laid eyes on him.

The goose plucked one of his feathers off and gave it to the mother and said, “sell this feather and you should be able to live comfy for the rest of this month.” The mother took the feather into town and sold the feather and like the goose said the family was well off. The goose returned one month later and gave the mother another feather for the mother to sell. Like before the mother took the feather into town and sold the feather and the family lived comfortable for a few months as this process continued.

Then the mother was scared that with this new lifestyle the goose would soon stop coming so she set up a plan with the children to trap the goose when he came back next. The goose like clockwork came back on the same day and time, like he always did each month before. The mother got close to the goose this time to take the feather, but instead of grabbing the feather she launched herself onto the goose. When she grabbed the goose, she yelled for the kids to start plucking all the feathers off the goose.

However, once the kids started to pluck the feathers off the goose, the goose started to shake hard and felt weird. The mother felt the shaking and couldn’t hold the goose down any longer and so she rolled off the goose and stepped back. The goose started to transform back into the person he was before, and the mother and children were all in shock when they saw who the goose really was.

The fairy popped up next to the father as he lay there on the ground confused on what happened. The fairy said, “I put a charm on you that if at anytime someone tried to take advantage of your gift you would turn back to your true self.”

The father was angry at his wife and could not believe that his beautiful wife and children would be so greedy like they were. The mother tried to apologize to the father and the father was not happy with his wife. The father grabbed the kids and said he was sorry that this happened to them and it wasn’t their fault this happened. The father gave the kids one last hug and left down the road in search of a new job and maybe never return to his family as he was saddened by his wife’s greediness.

Authors Note: I wrote a retelling of the tale about The Golden Feathers written by Noor Khan. This story is about a father that left his family to bring back riches to the family that they didn't have. The father was in the forest when a fairy turned him into a goose that was made of golden feathers. The father which now a goose flew back to family because he saw the value of the golden feathers. The wife started to get greedy and was afraid the goose would stop showing up to give his feathers to her. So, one day the wife and the three daughters grabbed the goose and started to pluck all his feathers out; however, the fairy put a charm on him for if and when this happened. Once the kids and mother started plucking the golden feathers the goose turned white like all the other geese. The goose once turned back into a normal goose flew off to join the other geese and lived a happy life with them. 

However, in my story I kept a lot of the original story; however, I wanted the father be brought back so the wife could see that there was no reason for his wife to be greedy. Instead of the goose staying a goose I chose to have him turn back into a human as himself. 

Link to the original story: The Golden Feathers