Goose Walking Over a Grave

A Wisconsin listener says that when her body gets an involuntary, inexplicable shudder, she says “A goose walked over my grave.” An early version of the saying, “There’s somebody walking over my grave!” appears in a 1738 book by Jonathan Swift, A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, in Three Dialogues. The phrase is generally used to describe an eerie premonition, though “A goose walked over our grave” may be used at that moment when a conversation falls silent. This is part of a complete episode.