A European Folktale, adapted by Jean Warren
Once upon a time, there was a King who had a very powerful magician at his court. One day, the magician gave the King a hen that laid beautiful eggs for a present. The king liked the eggs but he was greedy and he told his magician that he would like the hen better, if she could lay eggs of gold. So the Magician worked another magic spell and sure enough the hen started laying eggs of gold.
The king was delighted. He became very rich and the envy of the other kings. He kept his special hen in a golden cage next to his thrown. He knew that someday, someone would try to steal his hen, so whenever visitors came, he would have his magician come and hide the special hen and substitute an ordinary hen in the cage.
Sure enough, one day someone ran off with the hen in the golden cage. The king was glad he had had his magician switch the hens. He sent word for the magician to bring back his hen. But the next day, when the king looked in his golden cage all he found was a white rabbit. “What’s this!” said the King. “Little rabbit, how did you get in here? The King opened the cage and had his footman take the rabbit back out to the woods where he belonged. Then he called for his magician.
“Where is my magic hen?”, asked the King. I told you to bring her back. “I did bring her back,” said the magician. “I put her in the cage”, I just didn’t have time to change her back into a hen.”
They never did find the little white rabbit, but from that day forward, children found colorful eggs hidden all over the kingdom. And some say, that every once in a while someone found a golden one.
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