In 'The Golden Goose', what happens to anyone who touches the goose?
Answer
they stick to it
In “The Golden Goose,” anyone who touches the goose sticks to it.
The effect begins when the innkeeper’s eldest daughter tries to pluck one of the goose’s golden feathers while the hero, Dummling, is asleep. She becomes stuck fast. Her sisters attempt to help, but each one sticks to the person already attached, creating a growing chain of people trailing behind the goose.
The parade expands when a parson, a sexton, and two laborers try to interfere. Dummling eventually carries the golden goose toward the castle with this unwilling procession following him. The sight makes a princess who has never laughed burst into laughter, allowing Dummling to win her hand in marriage.
The tale is a Grimm fairy tale known in German as “Die goldene Gans.” It is classified as ATU 571, “All Stick Together,” with an additional episode sometimes classified as ATU 513B. The magical goose is not the same as the goose in Aesop’s “The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs”: in the Grimm story, the important enchantment is the sticky chain, while the goose’s golden feathers provide the temptation.