The Brothers Grimm’s “The Golden Goose”

LL and I read and discuss this lovely folktale. A man had three sons, the youngest called Dummling (Simpleton), who was mocked and sneered at. The eldest son wanted to hew wood in the forest, and his mother packed him cake and wine. On the way, a small grey man greeted him and asked him to share the food, but the son refused, saying he would have none left. At a tree, he cut his arm and returned home. The second son does the same, and cuts his leg.

Now Dummling asked repeatedly to go, and his father relented, reasoning that he might learn a lesson. His mother sent him off with cake baked with water and in cinders, and sour beer.

On the way, the same grey man appeared, but Dummling shared his meal, warning him it wasn’t much. But when he pulled out the food, it was cake and wine. The man thanked him after eating and directed him to a tree to cut down. After Dummling did so, there appeared a goose whose every feather was golden. He took the wondrous bird to an inn to spend the night.

The innkeeper’s had three daughters, and when Dummling had gone out, the eldest tried to take a feather from the goose but became stuck to it. The second daughter came for a feather and got stuck to the first, and the third, despite being warned away, fared likewise.

The next morning Dummling set off on his way, heedless of the three daughters. Soon, a scolding parson, a scheduling sexton and would-be-helpful laborers joined the ridiculous party. They came to a town where a king had offered the hand of his serious daughter to anyone who could make her laugh, and as soon as she espied Dummling’s impromptu retinue, she laughed as if she would never stop.

However, when our simpleton went to claim her hand, her father, revolted by this ugly, ridiculed fellow, gave him a further task: to produce a man who could drink a cellarful of wine. Dummling thought of the grey man, and at the felled tree sat a sorrowful man, who couldn’t drink water and who had just had a barrelful of wine but needed much more. He brought the man to the king’s cellar and he drank until his loins hurt.

But the king now made a new request: a man who could eat a mountainful of bread. Again he returned to the tree, and again he found a man who completed the task. And for Dummling’s final extemporaneous task, he had to produce a ship that could traverse land and sea. This time, the original grey man was waiting at the tree, and he said he would do it, “Since you have given me to eat and to drink.” Finally, the king could resist no longer, and when he died, Dummling inherited the kingdom and lived for a long time contentedly with his wife.

LL and I discuss this fine story of persistence in the right despite others’ resistance, the magical help and helpers that then manifest, and wisdom itself.

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I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.