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The phrase the old woman is plucking her geese, and its variants, mean: it is snowing.
In this phrase:
– the image is of snowflakes likened to white feathers;
– there seems to be no need to associate the old woman with any specific folklore figure: the reference may simply be to… an old woman doing the chore of plucking geese.
It seems that goose-plucking was associated with old women. The following, for example, is from The Exhibition of Paintings, Post-Office Place, published in The Liverpool Standard, and General Commercial Advertiser (Liverpool, Lancashire, England) of Tuesday 27th November 1838 [page 3, column 4]:
No. 181.—“The confidant.”—This is a clever little painting by Clater. It represents an old woman picking a goose, and a young girl busy unbosoming all her secrets to her.
Two variants of the phrase the old woman is plucking her geese, relating to Wales, occur as follows in Shropshire Folk-Lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings (London: Trübner & Co., 1883), by the English author and schoolteacher Georgina Frederica Jackson (1824-1895) [Volume 1: chapter 35: Rhymes and sayings: Local rhymes and sayings: I. Of local winds, and weather prognostics, etc., pages 580 & 581]—Shropshire is a county of western England, on the border with Wales:
When it snows, Shropshire people say to children, ‘The Welshmen are plucking their geese;’ sometimes adding, ‘and sending the feathers to market.’ Or, as I learnt it on the eastern borders of the county, ‘It’s the old woman plucking geese in Wales, and sending us the feathers.’
‘Singular that Herodotus, in his second book, tells us that certain Hyberborean regions were said to be inaccessible by reason of the showers of feathers. This he explains as meaning snow.’ (Letter of the Rev. J. Evans, Whixall Vicarage, Shropshire.)
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase the old woman is plucking her geese and variants that I have found:
1-: From a list of rhymes, sayings, etc., which are absent from The Nursery Rhymes of England: Collected principally from Oral Tradition (London: Printed for the Percy Society, by T. Richards, 1842), by the British antiquarian James Orchard Halliwell (1820-1889)—list by ‘J. B. K.’, published in The Weekly Chronicle (London, England) of Saturday 24th December 1842 [page 4, column 1]:
Neither have we here recorded among the games set down, the fruit-season pastime of—
Open your mouth, and shut your eyes,
And I will give you a golden prize.
Nor the amusement of—
Tip top tower,
Tumble down in an hour.
Nor among the sayings, the nursery exclamation in winter, of—
Look! look at the old woman picking her geese!
2-: From The Review, published in The Arkansas Banner (Little Rock, Arkansas, USA) of Saturday 28th October 1843 [page 2, column 1]:
The morning had been stormy at intervals, and about this time it would seem that the elements had some cause of malice against the militia system, which they intended to wash out; the rain poured down in torrents; then the sleet began to fall equally copious; now the sleet is converted into large hail; not a man left the ranks, although the cold was most bitter—and yet another change in the storm came whirling along, in eddies of wind, large flakes of snow, such as fall sometimes upon the Laurel Ridge of the Alleghanies, when they say that the “old woman is picking her geese.”
3-: From Local Rhymes and Proverbs of Devonshire, by ‘R. J. K’, published in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Inter-Communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. (London: George Bell) of Saturday 28th December 1850 [Series 1, Volume 2, No. 61, page 512, column 1]:
“Widdecombe folks are picking their geese,
Faster, faster, faster.”
A saying among the parishes of the south coast during a snowstorm. ‘Widdecombe’ is “Widdecombe in the Dartmoors.”
4-: From Notes and Queries: A Medium of Inter-Communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. (London: George Bell) of Saturday 26th August 1854 [Series 1, Volume 10, No. 252, page 173, column 2]:
“Widdecombe folks are picking their geese” (Vol. ii., p. 512.).—A Devonshire saying during a snow-storm. I think that your correspondent is mistaken in his opinion, that “Widdecombe, in the Dartmoors, is meant.” It seems to me that the sky only is meant, which is also called in Devonshire “widdicote.” I remember a nursery riddle:
“Widdicote, woddicote, over-cote hang,
Nothing so broad, and nothing so lang,
As widdicote, woddicote, over-cote hang.”
What’s that? Ans. The sky. Henry T. Riley.
5-: From Old-Fashioned Winter, published in the Richmond Daily Whig (Richmond, Virginia, USA) of Tuesday 22nd January 1856 [page 2, column 2]:
On Saturday, the 5th inst., snow fell here to the depth of 12 inches, and extended from North Carolina, below the Blue Ridge, to as far North as we have heard from, at varying and increased depths. On Saturday following, the 12th inst., there was another fall of snow of some 4 inches. On Saturday, the 19th, the weather was delightful, and the snow was rapidly disappearing in the exposed parts of the streets. But the day only proved a “weather-breeder”—and next morning, Sunday, the 20th, we awoke to another avalanche—and the process of snowing, which country boys call “the old woman picking the goose,” continued with slight intermissions throughout that day, and was resumed and continued for the early portion of yesterday.
6-: From Local Intelligence, published in The Royal Cornwall Gazette, Falmouth Packet, and General Advertiser (Truro, Cornwall, England) of Friday 8th January 1858 [page 4, column 6]:
Newlyn.—With the commencement of the year, our winter may be said to have also begun, in the form of a cold easterly wind, accompanied with frost and every indication of the “old woman picking her goose.”
7-: From Reminiscences of a Christmas Visit, an anonymous story published in The Hertfordshire Express, and General Advertiser (Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England) of Saturday 28th January 1860 [page 4, column 2]:
Out of bed I jumped, but to my surprise when on looking out of the window I saw the ground which the night before had been hard and frosty, and the field which had been green covered with a delicate white mantle of snow. It had snowed. If the legend about the old woman picking her goose be true, I should fancy it was Michaelmas where these feathers came from.
8-: From Town and County Matters, published in the Carlisle Herald: A Paper for the Family Circle (Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA) of Friday 23rd November 1860 [page 2, column 6]—here, fuss is a variant of the noun fuzz, designating a mass of loose, light particles:
The First Snow.—Last night, the “Old Woman” commenced picking her geese for Thanksgiving, and although there is not much “fuss” there is a pretty fair prospect for “feathers.” As we write, the snow flakes are flying around in fitful gusts, and the Sun seems ashamed to show his face, for fear the old lady will “dry up.”
9-: From The dialect of Leeds and its neighbourhood, illustrated by conversations and tales of common life, etc. To which are added a copious glossary; notices of the various antiquities, manners, and customs, and general folk-lore of the district (London: John Russell Smith, 1862), by C. Clough Robinson [Glossary: page 259]:
BULL. A word in use amongst children, and this only during a fall of snow, when they cry, in concert,—
“Snaw, snaw, faster;
Bull, bull, faster;
Owd women picking geese,
Sending feathers down to Leeds.”
It may possibly be a corruption of burl, to pour.
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