In the Dark

Yesterday afternoon I checked up and refilled the bird feeders in my garden and a bit later on sat down in the kitchen to see what visited. The usual suspects turned up: starlings, house sparrows, blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks, a robin, and a couple of jackdaws. I think I’m going to have to replenish the feeders pretty soon the rate they are guzzling food.

Anyway, during a lull in the proceedings I saw something moving around in the raised beds. At first I couldn’t see it and could only tell from the moving leaves. Then it emerged briefly before darting back under cover. It was a wren. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen one in my garden. From time to time I could hear its very loud song – it’s another small bird with a very big voice! – but it remained quite difficult to see. I tracked the wren’s progress across the garden for quite a while before it finally flew off. It didn’t try to use the feeders but, as I found out later, the wren feeds exclusively on insects rather than seeds and nuts.

I wasn’t sure whether wrens spends the winter here in Ireland but in the process of googling that I found out about a strange and disturbing Irish Christmas tradition. Another name for St Stephen’s Day is Wren Day or Wren’s Day or The Hunt of the Wren Day (Irish: Lá an Dreoilín). This is because of an ancient tradition of hunting wrens at this time of year, the origins of which are lost in history but it is worth remarking that birds play an important role in Celtic and Norse mythology. Originally this was probably connected with the Winter Solstice, but moved to St Stephen’s Day when the season was coopted by the Christian Church. Many so-called “Christmas” traditions are in fact entirely pagan in origin.

Nowadays Wren Day does not involve hunting any actual birds, though the celebrations can include a fake wren as a sort of effigy. It seems to involve people dressing up like this:

The people dressed like Boris Johnson in that photograph are mummers (or wrenboys, or strawboys) and they take part in parades, sing songs and generally carry on. There are Mummers parades elsewhere in the world too, although probably not this year because of Coronavirus restrictions. This year groups of mummers have been taking the opportunity to visit the homes of people isolated by Covid-19 restrictions, although I’m not sure I’d want a group of people dressed like that turning up at my doorstep. It’s all a bit Wicker Man for my taste.

I checked the garden this morning and there was no sign of the wren. Perhaps it knows what used to happen on this day!