Goose

in European countries, ducks and geese have a definite connection with devils and witches, who often have ducks’ or geese’s feet. There are many folk stories where all sorts of beautiful women and beings come along, but if you look at their feet you see that they have ducks’ or geese’s feet

Von Franz argues that geese function as a folkloric index of demonic or witch-nature, their feet serving as the tell-tale sign of evil concealed beneath attractive feminine appearance.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, 1974thesis

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The wild goose gradually draws near the cliff. Eating and drinking in peace and concord. Good fortune. It is said of the wild goose that it calls to its comrades whenever it finds food; this is the symbol of peace and concord in good fortune.

In the I Ching commentary, the wild goose embodies gradual, communal development — its communal call at food signifying the ethos of sharing prosperity rather than hoarding it.

Richard Wilhelm, Cary F. Baynes, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950thesis

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The wild goose gradually draws near the cliff. Eating and drinking in peace and concord. Good fortune. The cliff is a safe place on shore. The development has gone a step further. The initial insecurity has been overcome, and a safe position in life has been found.

Wilhelm’s rendering of the wild goose hexagram positions the bird as the governing image of step-by-step maturation, with each advance toward the cliff representing a new threshold of achieved security.

Wilhelm, Richard, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950thesis

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in honor of their guests, the couple offered to kill their sole goose. The goose took refuge with the Gods, who said that it should not be killed.

Jung’s retelling of Philemon and Baucis assigns the goose the role of a sacred being that, by seeking divine sanctuary, marks the threshold between pious hospitality and genuine theophany.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Red Book: Liber Novus, 2009thesis

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There is a big white goose in the cupboard but it’s too big for this tiny cupboard, it really couldn’t be in it.

In Winnicott’s clinical dreamwork, the oversized white goose crammed into a small cupboard alongside a witch images the uncanny excess of a maternal power that cannot be contained by its environment.

Winnicott, D W, Playing and Reality, 1971supporting

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Goose Grass: Yaemugura (made up of A Record of Four Filial Daughters, A Record of Miraculous Effects Achieved by the Ten-Phrase Kannon Sutra)

Hakuin uses ‘Goose Grass’ as a title for a collection of devotional narratives, indicating a Japanese Zen context in which the goose-plant name carries literary-spiritual resonance without explicit psychological elaboration.

Hakuin Ekaku, Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin, 1999aside

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ducks and geese sometimes become imprinted on a person, thereafter choosing to follow the person in preference to a member of their own species. Canada geese have been i

The passage invokes geese as a primary ethological example of imprinting, illustrating how attachment bonds can be redirected from conspecifics to human figures.

James, William, The Principles of Psychology, 1890aside

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