“Ha!” laughed Helli’s wife. “A copper feather! That’s your reward for feeding that thankless bird a whole year! And now it’s escaped!”
But the next day the Grouse returned.
“Feed me for another year,” it said to Helli, “and I’ll reward you.”
His wife raised an awful to-do over this, but Helli was firm and for another year he fed and petted the Grouse.
At the end of the second year the Grouse grew a silver feather in its tail which it dropped in the dooryard. Then it disappeared.
“One silver feather!” Helli’s wife cried. “So that’s all you get for feeding that thankless bird a whole year! And now it’s escaped!”
But it hadn’t. It returned the very next day.
“Feed me for another year,” it said to Helli, “and I’ll reward you.”
At the end of the third year the Grouse grew a golden feather in its tail and when it dropped that in the dooryard the scolding wife hadn’t so much to say, for a golden feather was after all pretty good pay for a few handfuls of grain.
For a day the Grouse disappeared and then when it returned it said to Helli: