THE WREN. 
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regard to its diminutive size, asserting truly that the Golden-crested Wren is our 
smallest bird. It is quite possible, however, if Shakespeare must be proved 
accurate on such points, to defend him by saying that he used the word “ Wren ” 
generically, and meant the Golden-crested Wren. He had evidently been a bird- 
nester in his boyhood, and knew how many eggs the Wren lays, from the 
words— 
“Look where the youngest Wren of nine comes.”— Richard III., i. 3. 
The Wren is a famous bird in folk-lore. The Cornish lads say— 
“ Who hurts the robin or the Wren 
Will never prosper, sea or land.” 
Together with the eagle, the Indo-European tradition * regarded it as a bringer- 
down of fire for men from heaven. Thus it was hostile to the eaqle, and as far 
back as Pliny’s time was deemed the king of birds. In France it is still known 
as I'oitelet (“little king”), and the same name runs through many of its appel¬ 
lations in other languages. The strife between the eagle and the Wren arose, 
according to the Irish legend, from the agreement of the birds that whichever 
of them could fly higher should be their king. The Wren roguishly hopped on 
to the eagle’s tail, unknown to that bird, as they proceeded to make the trial. 
When the eagle was miles above the rest, regarding itself as the conqueror, and 
too tired to fly higher, the Wren darted upwards a perch and a half, and asserted 
loudly its superiority. The eagle was obliged to confess himself vanquished, but 
gave the Wren a stroke of his wing as he flew down; and from that day to 
this the Wren has never been able to fly higher than a hawthorn-bush. Tennyson 
has an allusion to this tale in— 
“ Shall eagles not be eagles ? Wrens be Wrens ? ” 
The Wren, again, has been believed to share in what is generally deemed the 
peculiar office of the robin— 
“ Call for the robin redbreast and the Wren, 
Since o'er shady groves they hover, 
And with leaves and flowers do cover 
The friendless bodies of unburied men.” 
The most curious fact connected with the legendary history of the Wren, 
however, is the persecution it meets with in many countries, especially on St. 
Stephen’s Day. Several reasons, varying with the locality, are assigned for this 
* See Kelly’s “Indo-European Folk-lore,” p. 77. 
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