More Wren Stuff

[helwen]

http://www.jstor.org/pss/539700

http://wiki.name.com/en/Wren

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2791299

Interesting to note that the tradition of hunting the wren was slightly different in Wales and perhaps some parts of Ireland -- capturing the bird _alive_ and putting it in a cage to parade around during the St. Stephen's Day to 12th Night time period. Killing the bird before parading it seems to be more an English and French thing. I'm wondering if that's coincidence or if it was a way of early Christians taking a pagan custom on -- "killing" the pagan religion and at the same time "acquiring" the good fortune from the bird for themselves... Could just be a regional thing, but it wouldn't be the first time that people's of one religion did that to anothers (not just Christians either -- it's a human thing).

Also from one of the above sites is a note that a few places had their wren rituals at a different time of year, such as in the spring.

All of the wrenning songs our group Concentus seem to be of the killing variety, sadly. I do like the tunes but wish we had some Welsh songs instead.

Comments

[sandryhyh.livejournal.com]

Hi there, awesome site. I thought the topics you posted on were very interesting