FABLE AND FOLKLORE 117 



And in William Collins's Dirge to Cymbclinc are the 



lines : 



The redbreast oft at evening hours 

 Shall kindly lend his little aid, 

 With heavy moss, and gathered flowers, 

 To deck the ground where thou art laid. 



The conceit is far more ancient than Shakespeare or 

 Gay or even than Robert Yarrington — who, in 1601, 

 wrote a ballad on it concluding, 



No buriall this pretty pair of any man receives 



Till Robin Redbreast piously did cover them with leaves — 



for Horace relates in one of his poems how he as a child 

 wandering one day on Mount Vultur fell wearily asleep, 

 and was covered by protecting doves with laurel and 

 myrtle leaves. 



The robin is always remembered at Christmas in 

 the rural villages and farms of northern Europe, 

 for it is not migratory. In South Germany the cus- 

 tom is to put grain on a roof for the redbreasts, who 

 come trustfully about houses at that season, and find 

 welcome shelter in barns and straw-stacks: and in 

 Sweden and elsewhere an unthreshed sheaf of wheat is 

 set up on a pole for their winter fare. 



It will have been noticed that in the ballads quoted, the 

 wren is associated with the robin in a protective way. A 

 whole book might be written about this least of birds, 

 which, although the least, is called "king" in every 

 European language. We are told that a wren was in the 

 stable at Bethlehem when Christ was born ; and an Irish 

 proverb runs: 'The robin and the wren are God's two 

 holy men." How surprising, then, to read of a custom 

 called Hunting (or in some places Burying) the Wren, 



