The Snow Goose

The Snow Goose is a short story by Paul Gallico about Dunkirk and the regenerative power of friendship and love. It documents the growth of a friendship between Philip Rhayader, an artist living a solitary life in an abandoned lighthouse in the marshlands of wartime Essex because of his disabilities, and a young local girl, Fritha.

The Snow Goose, symbolic of both Rhayader (Gallico) and the world itself, wounded by gunshot and many many miles from home, is found by Fritha and, as the human friendship blossoms, the bird is nursed back to flight, and revisits the lighthouse in its migration for several years, as Fritha grows up. Rhayader and his small sailboat eventually are lost in the British retreat from Dunkirk, having saved several hundred men. The bird, which was with Rhayader, returns briefly to the grown Fritha on the marshes. She interprets this as Rhayader's soul taking farewell of her (and realizes she had come to love him). Afterward, a German pilot destroys Rhayader's lighthouse and all of his work, except for one portrait Fritha saves after his death: a painting of her as Rhayader first saw her — a child, with the wounded snow goose in her arms.