I pray for luck in my home,
Which thou also wilt not deny.
And the sign of the cross must thus be made thrice, and the invocation every time repeated.
This tale, I may observe, is not of the popular traditional type of Grimm and Perrault, but belongs to the dark lore current among witches and sorcerers, in which the story, although always ancient, is a mere frame for the ceremony and incantation. The marked difference between these narratives and mere märchen is very striking, because the former are in all cases guarded jealously, as profound and even awful secrets or formulas. I know an English lady of Italian life, i. e., one born of Anglo-Italian parentage—who has for a long time been “in with the witches,” and she has never yet been able to get her most intimate strega to converse on sorcery, or repeat a line of a legend, except in the open air, far away from profane hearing. One reason for this is that all such stories, especially the incantations, are generally sung. This is done in a very peculiar tone of voice. It sometimes requires years to get the right intonation which renders a certain incantation effective. Therefore, if one were to be heard singing alla strega, or in witch tunes, to a young lady, there would be a “difficulty.”
Charles Godfrey Leland.
Florence, Italy, 1893.
The Burial of the Wren.—I inclose a version of the song of the wren, a little different from the one printed in a recent number of the Journal. The variant is contributed by a young Irishman from Skibbereen. But why is the wren called the “king of all birds,” and what is the meaning of the song?
Mrs. Lucien Howe, Buffalo, N. Y.
The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
St. Stephen’s day it was caught in the furze;