The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs

The tale has given rise to the idiom 'killing the goose that lays the golden eggs', which refers to the short-sighted destruction of a valuable resource, or to an unprofitable action motivated by greed.

An Eastern analogue is found in the Suvannahamsa Jataka,[8] which appears in the fourth section of the Buddhist book of monastic discipline (Vinaya).

Among the 8th-century murals in Panjakent, in the western Sugdh province of Tajikistan, there is a panel from room 1, sector 21, representing a series of scenes moving from right to left where it is possible to recognize the same person first in the act of checking a golden egg and later killing the animal in order to get more eggs, only to understand the stupidity of his idea at the very end of the sequence.

[11] The French text was set as the fourth of Rudolf Koumans' Vijf fabels van La Fontaine for children's choir and orchestra (Op.

Yassen Vodenitcharov (1964-) has created a chamber opera from the story (2004) and Vladimir Cosma included the poem as the ninth piece in Eh bien !

Burundi's 1987 set of children's tales uses Gustave Doré's picture of the despairing farmer holding the body of the slaughtered goose (see above).

[14] The fable later appears on the 73 pence value from a Jersey set celebrating the bicentenary of Hans Christian Andersen in 2005, although "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg" never figured among his stories.

[15] The theme of a duck, goose or hen laying a golden egg, but not the traditional plot line, was taken up in films in both the United States and Russia.

In Golden Yeggs (Warner Bros, 1950) it was given cartoon treatment,[16] while it provided a comedy MacGuffin in The Million Dollar Duck (Walt Disney Productions, 1971).