Ryaba the Hen (Cyrillic: Курочка Ряба, Kurochka Ryaba) is an Eastern Slavic folktale of Ukraine^[1][2][3] and Russia.^[1][2][4]

• There lived an old man and an old woman, and they had a hen named Ryaba.
• One day, the hen laid an egg.
• It was not a simple egg, but a golden one.
• The old man tried to crack it, but could not.
• The old woman tried to crack it, but could not.
• A mouse ran by.
• With a mere sway of the mouse's tail, the egg fell, cracking upon hitting the floor.
• The old man cried. The old woman cried.
• "Don't cry", said Ryaba the hen, "I'll lay you a new egg, not a golden egg, but a simple one".^[3]

Professor of Russian at Williams College, Darra Goldstein, interpreted the story's meaning for children as teaching children to "value what is simple and real in life, for those are the things that nourish and sustain us, rather than riches we haven’t earned, which can disappear as suddenly as they appear."^[4]

• Ukrainian fairy tale
• Russian fairy tale