wren

Wren comes directly from Old English wrenna or werna, and it is one of the few bird names that passed through the Norman Conquest essentially untouched, neither replaced by a French word nor heavily modified. The word appears in the oldest English texts. Its Germanic cousins include Old High German wrendo and Old Norse rindill, all describing the same tiny, brown, tail-cocked bird that sings impossibly loud for its size. The wren's song — a rapid, trilling cascade — is among the most complex produced by any bird of its size.

The wren holds an anomalous place in European mythology: it is simultaneously called 'king of birds' and was traditionally hunted and killed on St. Stephen's Day, December 26th. The legend behind its kingship is mocking: in a contest to see which bird could fly highest, the eagle won — but a tiny wren had hidden in the eagle's feathers and, at the apex of the eagle's flight, launched itself a few inches higher. The wren won by concealment and wit, not power. It is a king in the trickster tradition.

The Wren Day tradition — hunting a wren on the day after Christmas, then parading it through the village — survived in Ireland and parts of Britain into the twentieth century. Boys called wren-boys would hunt a wren, place it in a decorated bush or box, and carry it from house to house singing, demanding money or food. The wren was sometimes said to have betrayed Saint Stephen with its chirping. The ritual is ancient, perhaps pre-Christian, folded into the Christian calendar.

In British architecture, Wren is a surname: Christopher Wren designed St. Paul's Cathedral. In the Royal Navy, the Women's Royal Naval Service were called 'Wrens' from their acronym WRNS. The small bird lends its name to women sailors and to England's greatest architect — by coincidence, not connection. The Old English word has scattered into unexpected places.