The Goose Wife is a mythical female character that appears in tales from the Inuit and other ethnic groups that dwell across the circumpolar Arctic region. The usual story is that the geese alight on land, become women by taking off their goose-skins and bathe in a lake. However, they are unaware that a human hunter is spying on them, and he steals the goose-skin of one of them, forcing her to be his wife. Due to the great similarities between both characters, the goose wife has been compared to the swan maiden, another female that alternates between human and bird forms.
Overview
Scholars have noted the great similarities between the character of the goose wife of the folklore of Arctic peoples and the swan maiden, which appears across Eurasia in several mythologies. The main plot points between both stories are that a flock of bird women (swans or geese) come to bathe in an earthly lake in human form; a man spies on them and steals the feather garments to force one of them to marry him; later, the bird woman regains her feathers (or birdskin) and flies back to the land of the birds.
As cited by Lotte Motz, researcher Inge Kleivan compared several Eskimo narratives of the bird/goose wife and produced a hypothetical proto-form. In these tales, the goose wife leaves her human husband and travels to the "Land of Birds". Whenever the husband finds her, she is already married to another bird person.
Researcher Birgitte Sonne stated that the bird wife is a wild goose or merganser in Greenland, while Inge Kleivan, in an article on Enzyklopädie des Märchens, stated that the bird maiden in Inuit stories was "almost always" a goose or a duck.
Distribution
William L. Sheppard traced the geographical distribution of the tale of the Man who Married Sea Fowl according to the available literature. Versions are found in the following regions and groups: Greenland, Labrador, Baffin, Iglulik, Netsilik, Copper, North Alaska, Northwest Alaska, Bering Strait, Mainland Southwest Alaska, Koniag, Siberian Yupik, and Chukchi.
Tales
North America
A. L. Kroeber collected a tale titled The Man who married a Goose, from Smith Sound. In this tale, the human hunter finds a goose woman and steals her garment. He marries her and she bears two children. Years into their marriage, the goose woman gathers feathers for herself and her children, they become geese and fly away. The human hunter meets a man named Qayungayung, carving boats and creating sea animals with every wood splinter. Qayungayung agrees to take the man to his wife across the water.
The goose wife also appears in tales of the Inuit hero Kiviuq. In these tales, Kiviuq (also Keeveeok, and variations) marries a woman whose goose skin he has stolen or hidden. She bears him children, but decides to fashion a pair of wings for her to return to the skies. In a version collected by Kira Van Deusen, Kiviuq finds three maidens bathing, all three having cast their water bird skins: "a sandhill crane, a loon, and a Canada goose".
Scientist Fridtjof Nansen reported an "Eskimo" tale wherein a reindeer-hunter finds some maidens bathing in a lake, and steals the clothes of one of them (the most beautiful one), while the other maidens escape in the form of geese and mergansers. The hunter marries the maiden and she bears him a son. However, she secretly gathers feathers to fashion new birdskins for her and her son, and they fly away. The hunter goes after them and meets a man cutting chips of wood that transform into fishes. The hunter rides a big salmon to where his family is hiding.