Long ago, there lived in a village an old woman who owned a fat hen. This hen faithfully laid a large egg daily for the old woman. The villagers were very jealous about this. Their hens never laid eggs daily and even when they laid eggs they were not large like what the fat hen laid for the old woman.
As time went by the old woman became greedy. She wanted two eggs a day instead of one and thought if she fed her hen more corn it would lay two eggs daily. So, she fed more corn to the hen and it grew fatter and fatter and became lazy.
The hen got so lazy that it would not even get up ad strut about the yard.
And, what is more it stopped laying eggs. The hen did not even give the old woman her usual daily egg much less give her two.
The jealous villagers were very happy as the old woman’s hen had stopped laying eggs.
By her greed the old woman had lost what was good for her.
Two Sri Lankan folk tales retold by Nira Diaz.
Source: Tales from Sri Lanka : Folk and history by Manel Ratnatunga/ folk lore/ Internet