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Show HUNTING THE WREN IN IRELAND Some Legends Regarding the Bird. In one of your issues last week you inserted part of an article from Longman's Long-man's Magazine on "The Wren Bush," an article correctly considered by you at of interest to many of your readers to whom facts about old Irish customs are always acceptable, wrote A. O'D. Taylor of Newport. R. I., in a late issue is-sue of the Newport Herald. The summary you quoted seems to me inadequate, as an explanation of the custom referred to, of killing the wrens on St. Stephens' day, and carrying carry-ing two or three of them about on a bush. The writer in Longman's Magazine Mag-azine says as follows: "The most probable explanation is that the wren was sacred to the Druids and was used by them in divination and other pagan rites at the festival of the winter solstice, which almost coincided coin-cided with Christmas, and consequently consequent-ly the clergy urged their converts to e'estroy the birds which were associ- j ated with such unholy rites." As I was born in the City of Cork, j in the south of Ireland, where the custom cus-tom prevailed, am now past the three score years and ten, and have always teen a student of Irish archaeology and of birds, I venture to think I may add a few remarks on this subject, founded on personal recollections and investigation. The Druidical explanation does not cover the whole ground, nor am I aware of any proof that the Christian Clergy of Ireland ever encouraged their converts to kill wrens. Hunting the wren about Christmas time is not yet extinct in either the south or west of Ireland. So far back as the year 1840 I well recollect my childish curiosity being aroused by seeing a lot of boys parading a country coun-try road, near the house where my 1 arents lived, and flourishing a bush with one or two dead wrens and one yr two other small birds tied thereto with gay ribbons. This was the day after Christmas. They were singing some song, which of course, I do not remember, but the correct version 01 what tne wnen-boys wnen-boys (as they were called) used to chant in those days, ran thus: The wran, the wran, the king of all birds, St. Stephen's day was cot in the furze: Although he is little, his family's grate, So we pray you, good ladies, to give us a trate: The boys, with this appeal, obtained caks and fruit and money, from the well-to-do houses in the neighborhood. If the boys were of larger sine, local history affirms that the following lines were often added, and practically attended at-tended to: Sing holly, sing ivy sing ivy, sing holly, A drop just to. drink, it would drown melancholy; And if you draw it or the best We hope in Heaven your soul, will rest, But. if you draw it or the small, li won't asree with the wran-boys at all! The "best" and the "small" refer to different brews of ale. How the wren became king of all biids is briefly referred to in Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's Ireland, published in 1S41-43. It is to this effect: In a grand assembly o all the birds of the air, it was determined that the sovereign of the- feathered tribal should be conferred upon the one who j would fly highest. The favorite was, naturally, the eagle who soared upwards, up-wards, and when he he had vastly distanced dis-tanced all competitors, he proclaimed, his monarchy in a loud note of tri umph. Suddenly, nowever, me wren, who had hidden himself under the: feather of the eagle's crest, popped out from his hiding place, Hew a few inches higher, and chirped out: "Birds all, look up and behold your Ring'." The wren'e kingship, however, is not a purely Irish legend. It appears in thei legends of several other countries; and must r.ot be confounded with his being immolated and carried about on a bush at Christmas time. A more potent reason for his execution execu-tion connects itelf in a very old tradition that in an opproaching encounter en-counter with -the Danes (.before the gitat battle of Clontarf, in which the Irish rounted the Danes on the H3d of April, 1014), when the native Irish were about to catch their Danish enemies ene-mies asleep, a wren perched upon the drum and woke the slumbering sentinels sen-tinels just in time to save the whole Danteh army. In consequence of this, the little bird was proclaimed a traitor, outlawed and his life declared forfeit whenever he was thereafter encountered. encoun-tered. There is another tradition prevalent up to fifty years ago and still surviving in some parts of the north and the suuth of Ireland, which may be an echo of the Danish one. It states that on one occasion James the Second's forces were on the point of surprising King William the Third's army early in the morning, when some wren's attracted by the fragments of the preceding night's meal, alighted on the head of adrum which had served for a table. The noise of their bills in iiickiiii;. awoke the drummers, who instantly beat to amis and saved William's Wil-liam's army from - defeat. This may have been about the years 16S9-1692. It is referred to in a little book published pub-lished in 18S8 by Dr. W. H. Hammond, entitled. "The Rights of Animals," where the cruelty of killing the tiny birds is deprecated. It was this view of the custom which induced Mr. Richard Dowden. who was mayor of Cork, in the year 1843, to insert in-sert in an official proclamation, an order or-der forbidding "the old popular ceremony cere-mony long prevalent in Ireland, of hunting and killing a wren on St. Stephen's day." Professor P. V. Joyse. M. U. I. A., of Dublin, in the second volume of his admirable ad-mirable work on the origin arid history of 'Irish Names,'! says that in oldeii times the wren whs 'regarded as a gieat prophet; -for by listening attentively atten-tively to jts chirping, "those who were skilled in, the language of birds, were enabled to predict future events. ' ' Hence, the writer.? an old. "Life of St, Moling'.'. translates drean, which is an Irish name for the bird by "magii-avium" "magii-avium" the "druid of birds." implying that drean was derived from drui-en (drui, or druid, en, of birds) and says' 1 : it was so called on account of the ex-! ex-! cellency of its augury. In the Irish language the wren ie called dreolan (pronounced drolaun) or dreolin (pronounced (pro-nounced droleen). ' Looking at the wren ornithologically. ' ! the Irish species is the "Troglodytes j curopaeus" of Cuvier, and the Mota-cilla Mota-cilla of Linneus. H is not exactly identical with, but is first cousin to our ! American house wren, the "Troglo-; "Troglo-; dytes aedon" and to our American ! winter wren, the "T. hiemalis." Trog-dolyte Trog-dolyte or cave-dweller, of course, refers re-fers to the dome-shaped, cavernous nest of the species. All of these little birds sing vehemently and cheerily at times. Not being a druid, T do not un- 1 dersiand what they mean to say. I I confess myself unable to solve the problem why St. Stephen's day should have been specially devoted in Chris-) tian Ireland to hunting the wren. If 1 the Druidical theory be dapoted. the destruction of a bird beloved by the Diuidr, associated with divination and pagan rites, may have seemed appro- ( priate at the time of Christmas, as as- ! sorting the abandonment of heathen worship and the acceptance of Chris-! tianity. Or. if the Danish encounter or that j between King Junes' and King Wil j liams' forces occurred on the day after Christmas, the date w-ould be explicable. explic-able. It would explain how the unfortunate un-fortunate wrens were "caught in the furze." as the song says, or whir bushes, where n doubt, thev were hiding after their mis-timed tattoo on the drum. |