FROM THE ARCHIVES:The origin of the tradition of Wren Boys or "mummers" collecting money on St Stephen's Day has been given several explanations. The practice was still widespread throughout the country in the 1940s and in Dublin, where the competition between Wren Boys, if this dyspeptic editorial in The Irish Times is to be believed, was really between those who could get up the earliest in the morning to be the first of many to harass unfortunate householders throughout the day. – JOE JOYCE
“The Wran, The Wran”
YESTERDAY “THE Wran, the Wran, the king of all birds,” had his brief day of fame.
Before almost every door in the country his name was chanted by bands of small boys, and before many his effigy or corpse was raised on the traditional bough.
Doubtless, many of the singers little knew the words of the song, or the story to which it relates.
In more than one country, the legend of the “wran, the king of all birds,” is familiar – the story of the competition of the birds as to who should be king, of the decision to settle the matter by a high-flying contest, and of the wren who rode on the eagle’s back to the greatest altitude of all.
Again, there is the tradition that the wren betrayed St. Stephen, and that it must pay, on the annual festival, the penalty for having brought the first Christian martyr to his death.
Whatever the reason for the St. Stephen’s Day parade may be, the children who participate have small knowledge of it.
To them, it is simply a heaven-sent opportunity of collecting pennies; and very little of their hymn is known to most of them, except the lines:
Knock at the knocker and ring the bell
Give us a copper for singing so well.
It is a fair wager, moreover, that the last line will be bawled most lustily by the most execrable singers of all.
In the cities, the performance of the “Wran boys” has reached a very low level.
There are few wrens, and almost as few bushes; there is little of the dressing-up that still makes the ceremony so attractive in some country districts; there is even less musical sense.
Indeed, the only qualification for the successful “Wran boy” is that he shall be able to rise from bed half-an-hour earlier than the singers from the next terrace.
The householders who woke to their din yesterday when the night was still black and cold, and were re-awakened at intervals of twenty minutes throughout the next twelve hours by the same unmelodious song, may consider themselves excused if they became a little brusque.
Even tradition can be wearying; and one might find a better postscript to Christmas than:
Up with the kettle and down with the pan,
Give us a copper for singing the Wran.
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