#wrens

Cactus Wren Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus

Don Balke (American, b. 1933). Cactus Wren Bird, Arizona, 1984. Gouache and watercolor on board.

A haunting song appears on the soundtrack of the new Peaky Blinders film: “Hunting the Wren,” performed by Lankum.

The song draws on centuries of Irish folklore surrounding the wren, a tiny winter bird often called the “king of the birds.” According to legend, the wren earned this title through cleverness. When the birds of the world competed to see who could fly the highest, the wren hid in the feathers of an eagle and soared above them all before emerging to claim the crown.

The bird also appears in long-standing winter traditions. On St. Stephen’s Day (December 26), groups known as “wren boys” once paraded through towns and villages carrying decorated “wren bushes,” singing rhymes and collecting small contributions for community celebrations. These rituals were tied to ideas of renewal and prosperity for the year ahead.

But the name “wren” also appears in a lesser-known chapter of Irish history. In the nineteenth century, the “Wrens of the Curragh” referred to women living in makeshift shelters on the plains of the Curragh in County Kildare. Many survived through sex work while forming their own community outside the boundaries of Victorian society. Their living conditions, and the attention they drew from authorities, were documented in reports discussed publicly in the 1860s.

This Women’s History Month, the story of the wrens reminds us how folklore, music, and history can intertwine, sometimes revealing the lives of women whose stories were pushed to the margins.

Read a historical account of the Wrens.

A little over a decade ago, researchers in Australia were placing recorders in the nests of superb fairywrens (Malurus cyaneus) when they discovered something entirely unexpected. The female songbirds were singing to their unhatched eggs. Even more astonishing, when the chicks finally hatched, experts noticed that all the birds that grew up in the same nest used a similar tune to beg their mother and father for food.