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DICTIONARY OF NAMES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 
An old Irish custom on St. Stephen’s Day, and one 
which has not quite died out, was the “hunting of the 
Wren” by boys. When captured, it was tied, alive but 
maimed, to a pole (or, according to Vallancey—‘‘ De Reb. 
Hib.,” 1v, 13—tied by the leg in the centre of two hoops 
placed at right angles with one another) and paraded around 
the neighbourhood, a few doggerel verses being repeated 
at each house, while a donation was requested, one version 
being :— 
The wran, the wran, the King of all birds, 
St. Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze: 
Come, give us a bumper, or give us a cake, 
Or give us a copper, for Charity’s sake. 
The proceeding is supposed to have originated through a 
Wren having at some former time betrayed the Irish to 
their enemies by tapping on a drum. Yarrell records a 
somewhat similar practice in Kerry, where the peasantry, 
on Christmas Day, used to hunt the bird with two sticks, 
‘one to beat the bushes, the other to fling at the bird.” 
Bullock also mentions it as prevalent in the Isle of Man, 
both on Christmas Eve and St. Stephen’s Day, and tells us 
it was founded on a tradition of a beautiful fairy who lured 
the male inhabitants to a watery grave in the sea, and who 
to escape subsequent destruction took the form of a Wren, 
which form she was supposed to be doomed by a spell to 
re-assume each succeeding New Year’s Day, ultimately 
perishing by human hands. Waldron records a different 
custom in the Isle of Man of the killing of a Wren on 
Christmas Day, which was laid on a bier, carried to the 
church and buried with the singing of dirges. To my 
own knowledge this custom of a ‘‘ Wren hunt ”’ existed in 
Nottinghamshire also within recent times, the bird 
being hunted along the hedgerows by boys armed with 
stones, but I do not recollect that anything definite was 
done with the bird when killed or maimed. 
The before-mentioned allusion to the Wren as the “ King 
of all birds” is perhaps explained by the legend of the 
birds having agreed to choose as King the one who should 
soar highest, the place of honour being gained by the Wren, 
through it having remained on the Eagle’s back until the 
latter had soared to the limit of its power. The Germans, 
it may be remarked, call the Wren “ Zaunkonig” or 
“ hedge-king :” the Latin regulus however is the GOLDEN- 
CRESTED WREN. In connexion with this belief in the 
kingship over other birds, a Twelfth Day custom of parading 
a caged Wren in Pembrokeshire, with the lines recited, is 
