The Wren: The Brilliant Trickster...

To them I was not human but a stone or tree: I felt a sharp wonder they could not feel.

Sharp wonder is a wonderful turn of phrase, and so apt here. The wren is a tiny bird, but with a huge voice and bold personality. It is a tiny, feathery bundle of contradictions, and has been inspiring humans through folklore and superstition for millennia. We are wondrous in the presence of the wren; we don’t understand how something so tiny can be so resilient and tough, and throughout history we have tried to figure it out through tales of deceit, betrayal and heroism. As a witch, I see birds as both a physical creature, wondrous and magical in their own right, but also as an incredible source of magical symbolism. By studying the wren’s appearance in history and mythology, we can sketch out a useful list of correspondences and symbolism to help us in magical and spiritual practice.

King of the Birds

It was possibly Aesop who first told this tale, which is referenced by Plutarch around A.D. 96. In Glen-na-hEan, valley of the birds, the inhabitants were trying to choose a king. An owl and two swans decided that the only way to decide this was to have a competition; whoever could fly highest would be crowned King of the Birds. Everyone was pretty certain that the eagle had this one in the bag, but as the eagle soared higher than anyone else, he became tired, and confident that he had won, began to relax and drift downwards. At that point, the wren took off from where he had been perched on the eagle’s back, flew the highest and won the title. Although the wren had won unfairly, the birds conceded that a king needs to be clever as well as strong, and so the wren was named King of the Birds.