Ireland's OWN: Myths and Magic

Wren Wren Day
—by Míchealín Ní Dhochartaigh

26 December or Wren Day. In Ireland is St. Stephen's Day, originally called "Wren Boy's Day," which dates back to the Celtic Winter Solstice ritual of hunting and killing of the wren. Wren Boy's Day itself, regardless of the christianisation of calling it St Stephen's Day, is a day that was celebrated in ancient Greece and Rome and in all of the so-called "British Isles."

It is a variation of the Oak/Holly King ritual. The Wren, "Little King" of the Waning Year (hiding in an ivy or holly bush), is killed by his counterpart, Robin Redbreast" of the Waxing Year, whose retreat is the birch, which follows the Celtic Tree Calendar. In some parts of Ireland, this is still celebrated. For example in Kilbaha in co. Clare, the Wren Boys are groups of adult musicians in colourful costumes who go from house to house bearing a tiny effigy of the wren on a bunch of holly. In parts of Co. Mayo, the Wren Boys and Girls are children, also bearing holly bunches, and going door to door Holly singing:

"The wren, the wren, the king of the birds,
On Stephen's Day was caught in furze;
Up with the kettle and down with the pan,
And give us some money to bury the wren."

Robin Hood: Another version of Wren Day. The Waxing Year Robin also brings us Robin Hood, or Robin of the Wood, who is honoured especially in Cornwall, according to Robert Graves in The White Goddess. According to Graves, 'robin' means ''phallus'; also robinhood is a country name for red campion or champion, a cloven petal that suggests a ram's hoof. Thus, "Red Champion" was a title for the witches' god. 'Hood,' or hud or hod, meant the log put at the back of the fire, and it was in this log, cut from the sacred oak, that Robin (the Red Champion) was believed to reside. When the Yule log is burned, Robin Hood escapes up the chimney in the form of a robin, and he is then pursued by Bran, who is disguised as a wren.

Sources:

Farrar, J. and Farrar, S. A Witches' Bible: The Complete Witches' Handbook. Phoenix Publishing, London, 1984.
Graves, R. The White Goddess. Faber Publishing, London. 1961.
Personal knowledge/traditions.