page_title: Hunt the Wren
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hunt the Wren / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Hunt the Wren in Ramsey, Isle of Man, in 1904. Photographed by G. B. Cowen and first published in P. G. Ralfe's Birds of the Isle of Man (1905) Gaelg: Shelg yn Drean, Rhumsaa, 1904
context_page_description: Hunt the Wren is a traditional custom carried out on the Isle of Man on the 26 December, St. Stephen's Day. It consists of groups of people going around villages and towns singing and dancing a traditional song and dance around a decorated wren pole.
context_section_description: The practice of Hunt the Wren was first noted in the 1720s, when it was remarked as having been practiced since 'time immemorial.'
  The wren was reputedly hunted after midnight on 24 / 25 December as a part of the Christmas festivities. The caught bird was lain on a bier and buried in the local churchyard with ‘a whimsical kind of solemnity’ including the singing of dirges in Manx. A much later account relates that the Manx words spoken at the burial of the wren were: Shee er yn dreean, shee er yn cheer, shee er y cheeyl, as shee er meehene ('Peace on the Wren, peace on the country, peace on the church, and peace on myself').
  A report of 1816 notes the hunting of the wren taking place between sunrise and sunset, and that the bird on that day was 'pursued, pelted, fired at, and destroyed, without mercy.' By at least this date the feathers of the bird were considered to bring good luck for the coming year, particularly against shipwreck. It was even noted that 'a fisherman would be considered as extremely foolhardy, who should enter upon his occupation without such a safeguard.'
  By 1845 it was said that 'for a century past' the practice was done on St Stephen’s Day. Dancing is here mentioned for the first time, was something which happened after the bird was buried in the churchyard: 'After the obsequies were performed, the company, outside the church-yard wall, formed a circle and danced to music which they had provided for the occasion.' However, it was also noted that the burial of the bird in churchyards had 'long since been abandoned,' with the bird instead being buried at the sea shore or some other such wasteland.
  In the 1840s the practice was spoken of as being popular mainly amongst boys, with as many as four different groups parading their wren around Douglas in 1842 (with each group blowing a horn). They are spoken of as going:
  from door to door with a wren, suspended by the legs, in the centre of two hoops, crossing each other at right angles, decorated with evergreens and ribbons, singing lines called "Hunt the Wren."
  The activity was popular in the 1880s, with about 30 sets of 'Hunt the Wren Boys' going around Douglas alone in 1884. Of these 30 groups, it was reported that only one had an actual wren on their pole; the others substituting 'a game-cock, rook, or, strange to say, a monster rat, for the wren.' By the 1890s the practice of capturing a wren was seen as rare and instead just the wren pole was being taken around the houses with singing. By the 1900s the practice remained common, with numbers of separate groups going around to Hunt the Wren in Onchan, Castletown, Douglas, Peel, Port St. Mary and Kirk Michael, and one group going to Hunt the Wren in Ramsey. Despite reports of it as 'dying out' in the 1930s, the practice of singing around the houses with the wren pole was still taking place in 1975, though it was said to be only 'done by children in Peel and occasionally in other places.' However, with the Manx cultural revival of the 1970s the dance was reintroduced into the practice, and it is in this form that the custom has become re-established since. Today the tradition is now flourishing with Hunt the Wren taking place in a number of towns and villages across the Isle of Man.
caption: Hunt the Wren in Ramsey (Waterloo Road), 1904
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