Who killed cock robin?

Referred to by Chaucer as ‘Robert redbreast’ and long a cheerful symbol of Christmas, the sweet-songed robin is so combative it will attack its own reflection, reveals Ian Morton

- Ian Morton

AS is so often the case, it began with legend, when the robin’s bold frontal display was interpreted as blood. The compassionate little bird had perched on the shoulder of Christ on the cross, singing a melody to console him and trying to pull out the thorns of the crown that pierced his brow, thereby covering its face, neck, and breast in gore. This tale goes way back. It was related in the 6th century, if not sooner, by Kentigern, Bishop of Cumbria (COUNTRY LIFE, May 27), who is remembered there with six churches dedicated to him and four more in Scotland, including Glasgow Cathedral. Also known as Mungo, St Kentigern was famed for bringing back to life by prayer a robin so tame it was fed by hand—it had been killed by boys jealous of the affection it enjoyed.

The notion of the blood-stained robin was established and, in his late-14th-century poem The Parlement of Foules, Chaucer referred to ‘Robert redbreast’—the first recorded example of a bird given a human name (and hence of anthropomorphism) in the English language. Also well established was the belief in robin’s sympathetic nature. Babes in the Wood, an anonymous ballad first published in Norwich in 1595, based on a traditional tale and subsequently incorporated into pantomime, ended with the lines: ‘No burial these pretty babes/Of any man receives,/Till Robin Redbreast painfully/Did cover them with leaves.’