He brings cool dew in his little bill,
And lets it fall on the souls of sin;
You can see the mark on his red breast still
Of fires that scorch as he drops it in.
Still another theory explains that its reddish front remains tinctured by the stain it received in trying to staunch the blood that flowed from the Redeemer’s pierced side.
Almost all boys in Great Britain are, or used to be, collectors of birds’ eggs, before bird-protecting societies and public enlightenment restricted their destructive enthusiasm; but the nest of the “ruddock” (robin) was rarely disturbed by the most careless of them, who, if undeterred by any soft sentiment, were frightened by the superstition that bad luck followed any such vandalism. Many maxims to this effect might be quoted, one of which, a proverb in Cornwall, runs:
He that hurts robin or wren
Will never prosper, boy or men.
In Essex they repeat to children a little ballad like this:
The robin and the redbreast,