Domestic geese have been used for centuries as watch animals and guards, because they make fierce watchdogs, which the Romans were grateful for in 390BC. The geese alerted them to an attack by the Gauls and saved the day.
But I wonder why we say they are silly? Maybe there is something about the way a goose moves, hissing and honking and flapping its wings. Samuel Johnson in his dictionary describes geese as ‘Large waterfowl proverbially noted, I know not why, for foolishness’. He obviously didn’t think they were silly either.
As geese fly south for winter, in a V formation, they honk to encourage each other to keep up. When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates with another. When a goose becomes sick or wounded, two geese will leave the flock to stay with it until it flies again or dies.
Geese have figured in many a myth in the past. The goose that laid the golden egg is a lesson in greed, while the nursery rhyme Goosey Goosey Gander is about tracking down priests during the 16th century religious persecutions.
A goose is the name of a tailor’s iron in former times, which had a goose-neck curve in the handle. The porter in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, says: “Come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose” meaning ‘you may heat up your iron’. A goose is also a playful prod in the behind, probably from the jabbing of a goose’s bill.
There are also many phrases involving geese. Goosebumps, also known as gooseflesh, resembles the skin of a plucked goose. Wild geese were a nickname for Irish soldiers who were forced to leave their homeland and serve in foreign lands. The early Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit ‘the wild goose’ because a wild goose cannot be tamed. A wild-goose chase is an absurd search for something difficult or impossible to find.
A Goosestep is a military drill in which troops swing their legs in unison high off the ground, keeping both legs straight and unbent, named after the goose that sometimes stands on one leg. It is associated with Nazi troops. Mother Goose is the imaginary author of a collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, portrayed as an old lady. She appears in Christmas pantomimes, sometimes in Welsh peasant costume. To cook your goose for you is to spoil your plans. It comes from King Eric of Sweden whose enemies had hung up a goose as a joke for his soldiers to shoot at. When he set fire to their town, he told them he wanted to ‘cook their goose for them’.
Hopefully, you won’t embark upon any wild-goose chases while looking for answers to our puzzles.
Happy puzzling!
