In the mid-1990s, when my kids were still small, and when autumn turned into winter, I had a vision of homes all over northern Europe where children might draw the same picture, on misty windows as the dusk falls, of a bird in flight.
I was also aware of the belief, in the far North, that the winter solstice marks the symbolic death and rebirth of the sun. So the bird in the window became an imagined folk-tale, in which a brave goose sets out alone and dauntless from her tribe in order to ransom the sun, trapped in the black, icy realms of the dead.
She is a contrarian, flying north when everyone else flies south, but perhaps her mission has a deeper significance. The sun is enlightenment, which unbefuddles the mind, not to make enchantment shrivel in the glare of rationality, but to balance it and make its shadows even stronger.
The winter’s first snowfall is a reminder that she succeeded at the cost of her life. When her feathers fall from the sky as snowflakes and her heart glows in the northern lights, we remember why she’s known as the Snow Goose, and for a little while forget our differences and become part of her song.
lyrics
All over Europe, in lands of the winter,
since time immemorial, this outline is drawn:
mist on the windows, where children draw pictures,
to show they remember the Snow Goose Song.
When all the geese fly south for the winter,
one stays behind to fly northwards instead,
all through the storm-clouds, the wind and the lightning,
to ransom the sun from the realms of the dead.
On and on she flies unwearying over frozen seas.
If she fails, the sun will vanish,
every corner of the world will freeze.
All through the autumn, the days become shorter,
the first breath of frost throws a ring round the moon.
Children draw pictures in mist on the windows,
in hope that the Snow Goose will send word soon.
On and on she flies unwearying over frozen seas.
If she fails, the sun will vanish,
every corner of the world will freeze.
Far away, all alone, no-one sees the Snow Goose die,
but the legend tells them why:
to release the sun,
to release the sun.
When the Snow Goose yields up her last breath,
wings let their feathers fall down from the heights,
turn into snowflakes to kiss the cold ground,
and her heart gives fire to the Northern Lights…
And we dance in the snow,
so that all our neighbours know
there will be a new sunrise.
Draw the sign of the Snow Goose
(draw the sign of the Snow Goose).
And we hold out our hands
to the world from North to South,
round the earth’s imagined corners,
till we all belong
in the Snow Goose Song.
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