Alaskan Range: Wayzgoose
"Modern librarians are also Knowledge Navigators. The overwhelming plethora of information cries out for skilled guides, like your local reference librarians. And we’re also Educators...'' writes columnist and librarian Greg Hill.
In the mid-90s my daughters and I used to sing “Ever So Goosey,” a song from the British hit comedy series “Jeeves & Wooster” based on the work of P.G. Wodehouse. Written in 1929 by Australian songwriters Wright Butler and Raymond Wallace, the tune begins “How do you feel when you marry your ideal?/ Ever so goosey, goosey, goosey, goosey.”
We still view those wonderful television adaptations regularly and even occasionally sing that jaunty tune. Gooseyness came to mind when I read an online article forwarded by an old teacher about Michaelmas, the feast day for Saint Michael, which is observed on September 29, stating that Michaelmas “was the time of the traditional printer’s celebration, the ‘wayzgoose.’”
"Wayzgoose” moved me to research, and I found that numerous other sources claim that wayzgoose was actually celebrated on August 24, Saint Bartholomew’s Day, the patron saint of printers and the anniversary of Gutenberg’s first Bible. Wayzgoose has been associated with generosity since it was celebrated by printing masters giving their workers a day-long holiday. They’d be allowed to form paper to cover the shop windows for the winter, and then enjoy a feast followed by an evening at the tavern, all provided by their master.
But how did wayzgoose come to be called that? “The name is baffling,” Www.WorldWideWords.org admits. It cites an article from a 1750 edition of “Lloyd’s Evening Post” saying it came from “ways,” an old English term meaning “stubble,” Waysgeese, also known as stubblegeese, were allowed to roam freshly harvested fields and were consequently well-fed and desirable, and they were often the featured fare at the printers’ feasts.
The connection to printing captured my attention since I’d recently read about a special edition of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” created by William Morris at his personal publishing house: Kelmscott Press. Morris was an intellectual polymath and leading light of the “arts and Crafts” movement of Victorian England. He created new types of high-quality furniture, fabric designs, wallpaper, and stained glass, all based on the best practices of early masters. The British Library article on him says “Morris’ approach to design was fundamentalist: he went back to the basics … For his printed fabrics he had re-created dyes from traditional recipes. For his book-making he looked back to the earliest days of printing.”
Kelmscott Press was renowned for quality craftsmanship. Morris re-designed 15th century type so it was more visually appealing, tracked down a paper mill willing to make handmade paper “matching the 15th-century Italian papers Morris admired,” and used the finest of inks and bindings. His “Works of Geoffrey Chaucer” was his final and crowning achievement. Morris hired artist Edward Burne-Jones to illustrate this masterpiece, “which was exceptional in it ambitious number of illustrations and rich, decorative borders,” and they worked closely for eight years until it was finally published in 1896, shortly before Morris’ death. You can’t buy or borrow an original, but there are leather-bound facsimiles of Morris’ masterpiece available for $2,200. Or you can use your borough library card to borrow an excellent reproduction for free.
Our library owns 64 Chaucer-related books, including 22 translations and books about “Canterbury Tales.” You can borrow audio versions on CDs, download free e-books of it through the library webpage (fnsblibrary.org), or peruse an original Kelmscott Chaucer via the British Library’s Online Gallery using the library’s internet stations. That’s because the library’s role as Knowledge Aggregator remains unchanged from clay tablet days to the computer age. By aggregating a little tax revenue from everyone, we can all have access to very expensive information and entertainment that none of us could afford individually.
Modern librarians are also Knowledge Navigators. The overwhelming plethora of information cries out for skilled guides, like your local reference librarians. And we’re also Educators – name any aspect of our work that isn’t education in some form. Education doesn’t start at five and end at eighteen. It doesn’t occur only when the school libraries are open.
Aggregating, navigating, and educating are what’s going on in your library. As American Poet Laureate Archibald MacLeisch said, “What is more important in a library than anything else – than everything else – is the fact that it exists.”
