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| Eric Graise, puppeteer Leah Hoffman, Ashlyn Maddox, and the company of The Snow Goose. (Photo: Diane Sobolewski.) |
In Paul Gallico’s famous World War II novella The Snow Goose (written in 1941), an injured Canadian snow goose that may have lost her way during a storm brings together a young artist named Philip Rayader who has come to live in a lighthouse in the Great Marsh on England’s Essex coast and a twelve-year-old orphan named Fritha. Philip’s physical deformities – a humpback and one hand twisted like a claw – have made him a source of fear among his neighbors; accustomed to being treated like a pariah, he leads a reclusive life, feeding and caring for the local birds. But when Fritha comes across the goose wounded by a hunter’s bullet not far from the lighthouse, she overcomes her trepidation and, aware of Philip’s work with the birds, brings her to his door and implores him to heal her. He does, with Fritha’s assistance, and gives the bird a home for the winter. When the young girl keeps returning to visit the goose, whom they’ve given the name The Lost Princess for her elegance and regal bearing – and, presumably, because her strange appearance so far from her natural habitat lends her a magical aura – Philip is uncomfortable at first because he understands that Fritha’s community would hardly approve of her seeking out so unwelcome a presence. But because what turns into a friendship between them is focused on the Princess, they are able to transcend his reluctance and hers. The goose flies with the other birds when winter comes, but every spring she returns to the lighthouse. Ten years go by, and Fritha grows into a young woman whose feelings for Philip have blossomed yet become unfathomable to her. War breaks out, and when the local men are exhorted to use their small fishing boats to rescue the soldiers trapped at Dunkirk by the Nazis, Philip is determined to answer the call.
