Are six geese a-laying different from other geese? Samantha Johnson says this about geese a-laying. "Geese have a limited laying season - just a few months in the spring, and most birds lay only about 40 eggs per year".
Suzanne Hugo writes: "Geese with their exceptional eyesight and wide field of vision, combined with their strident voices, make excellent guards against approaching strangers or predators since outsiders cannot calm them into silence. This was shown in 390 BC, when Rome was attacked by Gallic troops. It was the alertness of the holy geese (Juno's sacred geese) housed in the temple of the city's fort that allowed the defenders to wake in time to resist the attacking enemy. Today, in the high Andes, Southeast Asia and many other places, geese replace guard dogs. In Europe, they are used to guard whiskey warehouses and sensitive military installations (National Research Council, 1991)".
And in later times geese were considered holy: "the ancient Celtic people saw the Holy Spirit not as a hovering white dove but as a “wild goose.” The meaning behind this peculiar choice is because they saw how the Holy Spirit has a tendency to disrupt and surprise. The Holy Spirit moves in our lives in an unexpected fashion, similar to the actions of a wild goose".
So how does the expression "wild goose chase" come about when geese are so smart? Mentalfloss.com comes to our assistance with its article on the expression here. Where is the reference most famous? It is in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
"Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?"
The expression has made a great journey from "a pursuit of something as unlikely to be caught as the wild goose" to a futile search, so it seems to me that six geese a-laying is quite an expression in our Christmas song.
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