His crown, thus dyeing its own breast red; in Wales for daily bearing in its bill one drop of water to the place of torment, in order to extinguish its flames.
The Breton legend has been thus versified by the Rev. J. H. Abrahall:
Bearing His cross, while Christ passed forth forlorn,
His Godlike forehead by the mock crown torn,
A little bird took from that crown one thorn.
To soothe the dear Redeemer’s throbbing head,
That bird did all she could: His blood, ’tis said,
Down dropping, dyed her tender bosom red.
Since then no wanton boy disturbs her nest,
Weazel nor wild-cat will her young molest—
All sacred deem that bird of ruddy breast.
Boys always respect its nest: they say in Cornwall,
Who hurts the robin or the wren
Will never prosper, sea or land.
But the penalty attached to such sacrilege in Devonshire is peculiar. A little boy in the neighbourhood of Dartmoor was heard to say that if you took a robin’s nest all the “clomb” (i. e. crockery) in the house would break.
In Scotland, however, the song of the robin is thought to bode ill to the sick person who hears it, and a similar belief holds in Northamptonshire; where, indeed, the bird is counted a certain prophet of death, and is said to tap three times at the window of a dying person’s room. Thus, again, at St. John’s College, Hurstpierpoint, the boys maintain that when a death takes place a robin will enter the chapel, light upon the altar, and begin to sing.[1]
The wren generally shares in the reverence paid to the robin;
- ↑ Singularly enough, I saw this happen myself on one occasion. I happened to be in the chapel one evening at six o’clock, when a robin entered at the open circular east window in the temporary apse, and lighting on the altar began to chirp. A few minutes later the passing bell began to toll for a boy who had just died.—S. B. G.
