Join the new world

We all know that traditions die out. That its a drag to go to the town square to watch some people in weird clothing.

Etc etc. People grow older . Your tastebuds change. Can you still remember the fabulous taste of a naartjie* when you were a kid



Stuff change but that doesn't mean we should not ..... ah what the heck
So here goes:

Happy St Stephens Day or Happy Wren Day



This is a wren and I am bit concerned that the pic is to be found on good food Ireland's website.
Some Wrenboys:




a fake wren on a stick









Apparently you can enjoy the day or just sit on your coach watch some movies drink some beer or go shopping if your feeling a bit boxing day'ish. Your children can also hustle drunks for some money by playing drunken tin whistle songs. 'Suepurrrlaatife me laaadddy here is a nickel

Btw we usually visit a region of the eastern cape around this part of the year that is part of the british settler areas of old. In my youth there used to be a concert thrown on what we called Boxing day and I can remember twice attending. It was quite fun. It was not even standing room only which was a bit annoying but OK.

To finish of more of the real tradition and less of our real lifes.

Wren Day

n Irish, it is called Lá Fhéile Stiofán or Lá an Dreoilín, meaning the Day of the Wren or Wren's Day. When used in this context, "wren" is often pronounced "ran"

People dress up in old clothes, wear straw hats and travel from door to door with fake wrens (previously real wrens were killed) and they dance, sing and play music. This tradition is less common than it was a couple of generations ago. Depending on which region of the country, they are called wrenboys and mummers. A Mummer's Festival is held at this time every year in the village of New Inn, County Galway and Dingle in County Kerry. St. Stephen's Day is a popular day for visiting family members and going to the theatre to see a pantomime
( see above)


So why was the wren killed in old days and hanged on a branch.

Why, of all birds, is the inoffensive little wren chosen as the martyr for display by groups who take their name from it? Because of its treachery, some claim! When the Irish forces were about to catch Cromwells troops by surprise, a wren perched on one of the soldiers drums made a noise that woke the sleeping sentries just in time, thereby saving the camp.
Another explanation is that it 'betrayed St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, by flapping its wings to attract his pursuers when he was hiding'. More say the hostility towards this most harmless of creatures results from the efforts of clerics in the middle ages to undermine vestiges of druidic reverence and practices regarding the bird. Medieval texts interpret the etymology of wren, the Irish for which is dreolín, as derived from 'dreán' or 'draoi éan' the translation of which is 'druid bird'.

Clíona the seductress
One of the most interesting legends is that Cliona, a woman of the otherworld, seduced young men to follow her to the seashore. Here they drowned in the ocean into which she enticed them. Eventually a charm was discovered that, not only protected against her wiles, but could also bring about her destruction. Her only method of escape was to turn herself into a wren. As a punishment for her crimes she was forced to take the shape of the little bird on every succeeding Christmas Day and fated to die by human hand. Hence the seemingly barbarous practice of hunting the wren.



Groups who went out in the Sligo-Leitrim area could only say, by way of explanation, that ‘she betrayed Our Lord’. In what way nobody knew, but because of this ‘it was good to hunt and kill her around Christmas’. Long ago bands of youths knocked ditches and scoured hedges in order to capture and kill the bird to have it for display. ‘The Boys of Barr na Sraide’ immortalises in ballad the young men ‘who roamed about with cudgels stout, a-searching for the wran’. Pursuit of the bird persisted, with the Wrenboys of Co. Kildare, into the early years of the 20th century. Accounts relate that for a day or two previous to the holiday it was, ‘hunted and knocked over with stick or stone. Two or three of them are tied to a branch torn from a holly bush, which is decorated with coloured ribbons. On St. Stephen's Day, small parties of young boys carry one of these bushes about the country, and visit the houses along the road soliciting coin or eatables. At each house they come to they repeat a version of a "song" which varies in different localities. All versions seem disjointed and in no way refer to St. Stephen's Day nor to the object of killing the wren.'
Some groups settled for a cork with feathers attached thereby allowing the creature spend the holiday undisturbed. They 'carry around little toy birds on a decorated bier, and they themselves have ribbons and coloured pieces of cloth tied to their clothes. If they receive no welcome at a house and are told to, “be off out of that”, there is the danger of them burying one of the wrens opposite the hall-door, through which no luck would then enter for a twelvemonth. Eventually, at the end of the festivities, each wren is buried with a penny.’

So whatever you like to do on this day be it dress up as a wrenboy and parade or playing the tin whistle at your local pub. To the Irish amongst us . Enjoy this day.




Chumbawamba - Cutty Wren


a bit more from chumawamba ..

Nevermind the ballots here is the rest of your life
* Mandarin, Satsuma, or Tangerine in South Africa called by all the Naartjie. pronounced Njaaar tchi (like sneezing)