The Snow Goose

"Why does it snow, mother?", asked a little boy one cold December day as he looked out of the window and saw the snow falling down all around.

"Because the Snow Goose flies overhead in the winter time and when it does it sheds its feathers of white snow on all the world", replied his mother.

"Is that really true?", asked the boy, sceptically.

"Ofcourse", said his mother, "The Snow Goose is the icy brother of the fiery phoenix and, just as the firebird rises from out of its ashes, the snow goose melts away and rises up out of a puddle. Ofcourse the two brothers don't spend much time together because if the phoenix were to embrace the snow goose with its blazing wings it would melt away and its puddle put out the the phoenixes flames so the Phoenix lives in the hot southern tropics and the Snow goose in the frozen north and they never meet except one time, long ago, when an evil Iron wizard captured the Snow Goose and locked it in a magic cage and the Phoenix had to go searching for him".

"Why did the wizard lock up the snow goose?", asked the child.

"Because the Iron wizard hated Christmas and he knew that people liked White Christmas's so the way to spoil everyones Christmas was to stop it snowing", said the mother, "And when Christmas Day came and it didn't snow, everyone was sad, especially the children who liked to play in the snow but then, hearing that it had stopped snowing and worrying about his brother, the Phoenix went to search for him. He flew all across the earth, singing a song of gold and listening for his brothers silver song until, eventually, he found his brother at the top of a mountain locked in the magic cage and unable to get out. Seeing the snow goose locked up, the phoenix wept tears of flame .

But before the phoenix could do anything to help his brother, the evil Iron wizard returned and, casting a spell, locked the phoenix inside a magic lantern, saying 'Ha! Now your eternal fire will provide the light for my lantern so I will never need to light another candle" then he put the two side by side, the Snow Goose locked in its cage and the Phoenix locked in its lantern so that he could admire his trophies".

"What happened then?", asked the little boy, still sceptical but now quite engrossed in his mothers tale.

"Well, after a while, the Iron wizard fell asleep and while he was asleep something happened; the light and heat coming from the lantern, reaching out in golden beams, touched the feathers of the Snow Goose and it started to melt, turning into a puddle of water and, when that happened, the water trickled out through the bars of its cage and then, up out of the puddle of water, the Snow Goose rose again. But the Snow Goose could not free the Phoenix from the lantern and so it picked up the lantern and carried it through the air until, high over some sharp rocks, it dropped the lantern, shattering the magical glass it was made from and when this happened the phoenix flew up out of it like the sun rising".

"But what happened to the Wizard? Was he punished?", asked the little boy.

"Indeed he was", the mother replied, "For when the Phoenix and The Snow Goose flew back to him they both turned their power against him; the phoenix an intense heat like the heart of a furnace and the snow goose, the cold of an arctic wind and, because heat expands iron and cold makes it shrink, the Iron wizard was shattered to pieces".

The boy was stunned by the story but still he didn't believe it; a goose with feathers of snow that flew through the air, it seemed far too incredible to be true but then the boy ran outside to play and instead of making a snowman, as he normally would he decided to make a snow goose with a long neck and a beak and webbed feet of snow and so proud was he of his creation that, when it was finished, he ran inside to tell his mother and ask her to stop her housework and come out to look at it.

But then, much to the boys surprise, when his mother and he came back out again, he could not see his Snow Goose anywhere.

"Where could it have gone?", he asked his mother, looking all around, "It is too cold for it to have melted".

Just then however his mother pointed to the sky and, gasping, shouted "Look!".

There in the sky, flapping the wings that he had carved, the boy saw his snow goose, it was flying through the air just like the goose in his mothers story.