WALES.
On St. Stephen’s Day, everybody is privileged to whip another person’s legs with holly, and this is often reciprocally done till the blood streams down.—Southey’s Common Place Book (1851, 4th S. p. 365). In Mason’s Tales and Traditions of Tenby (1858, p. 5) this custom is alluded to as being celebrated at that place.
IRELAND.
On the anniversary of St. Stephen it is customary for groups of young villagers to bear about a holly-bush adorned with ribbons, and having many wrens depending from it. This is carried from house to house with some ceremony, the “wren-boys” chanting several verses, the burthen of which may be collected from the following lines of their song:
“The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
St. Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his family’s great,
I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat.
My box would speak if it had but a tongue,
And two or three shillings would do it no wrong;
Sing holly, sing ivy—sing ivy, sing holly,
A drop just to drink, it would drown melancholy.
And if you draw it of the best,
I hope in Heaven your soul may rest;
But if you draw it of the small,
It won’t agree with the wren-boys at all;” &c., &c.
A small piece of money is usually bestowed on them, and the evening concludes in merry-making with the money thus collected.—Croker, Researches in the South of Ireland, 1824, p. 233.
