Wedding

gifts always include geese, which are symbolic of conjugal fidelity. A goose is carried before the bridegroom’s proce ion to fetch home the bride. She is borne over “a brazier of fire” (see Fire), and worships the goose with her bridegroom (Notes and Queries, 6th August 1898), Dr Morrison (Dicty., under Marriages) says that “wild geese have in every age been an emblem of conjugal fidelity in China.” In the Shi-King cla ic we read: “The wild geese cackle in response; day breaks and morning commences; the bridegroom has gone to bring home his wife ere approaching spring shall have melted the ice.” From the swan egg were born Helen—the moon—and the two brethren—day and night—children of the swan Zeus, who thus answers in the legend to Seb the goose that lays the sun-egg. 185