Barnacle Geese Affrighted. This item is unavailable.Barnacle Geese Affrighted

Etching and drypoint on cream wove paper, 8 1/4 x 12 1/16 inches ( 209 x 305 mm), full margins. Signed and numbered 59/75 in pencil, lower margin. Notations in pencil along the lower sheet edge, recto, well outside of image area. A superb, well inked impression. The Irish Folklore Commission, which collected lore from schoolchildren in the late 1930s, claims that the early arrival of these geese, between late September and early October, was believed to be a harbinger of a hard winter. Their arrival in large numbers was heavily associated with the loss of crops. Scaring the geese away was a farmer's most powerful tool in alleviating the damage.