Wren

The simplest things can catch your attention whilst you are doing some kind of daily chore or task and you find yourself caught up in a moment of joy.

Sometimes it happens like this – We are sitting at the kitchen table drinking our morning coffee, a scattering of post, magazines and biscuit crumbs in disarray around us when a movement through the window catches our eye. “Oh look, the Wren!” we cry, for there she is so tiny, yet so fat, so shy, yet so bold. She hops about upon the path then barges her way through the boisterous sparrows with neither care nor fear, as we watch she disappears amidst the leaves and greenery. Perhaps that is the only view for today, but no, she is there again, across the grass, up onto the deck and between the terracotta pots, now upon a chair where lay a rolling stack of abandoned flowerpots, right inside she creeps, then out again she pops. Now climbing up a stem, now dropping down again, ah now what is this she has found? a tall blue china pot in which grows a patio rose, up she hops and sits a while between the bright pink blooms that linger still. Then on whirring wings up onto the fence, hopping along to the trellis to sit high above her world and looks as if she might just sing. Oh please do sing dear little Wren, we heard you sing this morning early in the day when it was barely light, a sweet crescendo of varying notes that rose and fell up and down the scale, so loud for one so small. But no, no more song today, too busy she seems to say, to stay and play, too much to do, and off she goes again, along the fence, through clematis stems and jasmine leaves, now more yellow than green. I wonder if she realizes just how much joy she brings and how glad we are that she came to bring her special presence to our special place.

However, sometimes it is long awaited – All winter long this year how quiet the Wren has been. Around our house it is usual to hear a Wren sing in most months of the year, bursting into song at random times throughout the winter months not just through the spring into summer and then the autumn. This winter, however, something has been missing, there have been several extremely deep cold, frosty, icy, freezing, snowy spells lasting several weeks at a time, the cold deeply penetrating and unforgiving. Birds have suffered and early spring growth delayed, even the snowdrops were late to bloom and the spirit rising, cheery trilling song of the Wren has failed to drift and ring out through bramble patch and hedgerow round about. So quiet the Wrens have been that we feared for their survival throughout the freezing winter weather in which casualties are sadly inevitable. Each morning, as spring approached, the window would be flung wide to listen, but alas between the Song Thrush, Robin and Blackbird only the Dunnock could be heard, with its poor imitation of the beginning of the Wrens tune, only to hesitate, to try to begin again to no avail and leave us disappointed once again. No Wren today. February came with the start of lambing, an early pale primrose and nod of golden daffodils but still with unpredictable weather, until March arrived on a north wind chill that brought out the blackthorn blossom and Robins began to court. Still we waited, but listen, was that a classic Wren disgruntled ‘tick ticking’, a few experimental notes one frosty morn? The temperature warmed just a little and mud glinted in a patch of afternoon sun. Then one morning it happened, just a couple of days before the spring equinox, the dawn air was suddenly filled with the long awaited explosion of notes and trills, up and down in volume and speed they spread across the lane, through silver willow bows and winter tinted bramble stems to float up through our window to bring the most exquisite joy. The Wren had made us wait until a slight scent of spring was drifting on the breeze, up through the early morning air. As the wild garlic pushed up through the damp soil and windflowers prepared to bloom, the Brimstone butterfly, on new wings was taking to the air and the Chiffchaff remembered to sing his name, the Wren announced the world was his to claim.

One winter a Wren took shelter behind the boards above the corner of our bedroom window. It became his home, his winter quarters for a good many weeks and we were entertained each morning by his daily routine. As light dawned and the day came alive, the little Wren would appear and sit upon the drainpipe and chatter quite crossly as if upset by some disagreeable disturbance, along with a good deal of feather fluffing. Apparently satisfied that all was well the little round bird would spread his stubby wings and glide down to bramble bushes opposite, down below, looking for all the world like an oversized abseiling bumblebee. Having arrived at his desired destination, with head and tail held high he would pour forth a loud cascade of jumbled, random notes and phrases that suddenly materialised into a beautifully orchestrated, perfectly stung together songbook.

The Wren, little, often overlooked, but amazingly, probably due to its small size, actually one of our most common British birds. A small, round, brown bird with short legs who generally minds his own business but often appears to take offence most unnecessarily, yet always looks as if he is carefully considering his words before he speaks, a wise bird indeed.

Druid Bird or Cutty Wren

The Wren has always, traditionally, been the Druid’s most sacred bird. In the Irish Gaelic language the name is Drui-en or Druid bird and in Welsh the word for both Druid and Wren is Dryw.

The belief is that the Wren symbolises wisdom and divinity, at new year the apprentice Druid would go out in search of a Wren, out into the countryside, in the hope of finding one of these tiny, difficult to see, sacred birds. If he was clever enough, and lucky enough to see one it was taken as a good sign, and as a result he would gain blessings and inner knowledge. Also, the Wren’s nest was known as a Druid's house, carefully constructed, wisely positioned and maybe a little secretive. Druids believed that listening to the song of a captured Wren could prophesy the future.

There is of course the fable regarding the test to see which bird is the cleverest, the King of Birds. This story may consider the idea of the resemblance between the Wren and the Druid, as being wise and clever, thoughtful and maybe a little cunning. The story tells of the challenge to confirm which bird can fly the highest, and so will consequentially be declared the King. The Eagle, of course is the largest of birds, so surely can rise to the highest of heights and must be King, but oh what about the tiny Wren, surely too small and fragile. It is however, the Wren with much consideration and more than a little cunning, who hops onto the Eagle’s back and rides with him to his maximum height, then jumping up the Wren flies just that little bit higher!

In Ireland, the Isle of Man and in countries across Europe the Wren was, on 26th December, the subject of a St. Stephen’s Day tradition. Boys, ‘wren boys’ or ‘mummers’, with blackened faces and dressed in ragged clothes, would go out on a Wren Hunt, capturing a Wren and securing its body to the lead boys staff or a Holly branch, decorated with ribbons, to be paraded around the town. This event may have come about due to the Isle of Man folklore story about a beautiful maiden of the fairy people who came to the island and enchanted the men with her beauty and magic powers. It is said that all the men left their work when she appeared and collected around to follow her. She led them to a river with an apparently shallow ford which she walked through to the other side, but alas when the men followed the shallow water became a raging river and most of the men were washed away and drowned. As a result, the survivors gave chase intent on their revenge but the enchanted maiden simply laughed, shape shifted into a Wren and flew away. It is believed that this story gave rise to the St. Stephen’s Day Wren Hunt tradition.

In the south of England and Suffolk the bird is referred to as the Cutty Wren (cutty meaning small). The last Cutty Wren tradition may have been the performed on St. Stephen’s Day in 1994 at the village hall in the Suffolk village of Middleton, with the presentation of a carved wooden Cutty Wren hidden in a wreath of ivy decorated with ribbons, which accompanied by traditional Wren hunt songs and dancing was then paraded through the village to the Bell Inn where the story was told of how the Wren became the King of the Birds.

One wonders whether there is more behind these stories and fables, whether the Wren ‘festival’ of the hunt and parade was a token of good luck for the coming year, as it was with the endeavours of the apprentice Druid or was the Wren, like the Raven, a subject of persecution driven by a rise in distrust and misunderstanding, even fear of the Druids with their ancient pagan beliefs worshiping the natural world. So next time you see a Wren bird watching you if you see him raise his tail and sing look him in the eye and listen to what he has to say, you might just be surprised!

Words and pictures by Artist and Druid © 2023 unless otherwise indicated.