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Showing posts from December, 2007

The wren boys

They had to start the rounds early, because by midday, the locals' reserve of holiday cheer would be depleted. If yours was the first roving band of wren boys to come to a house, you'd do well, but if you were the third or fourth, they might not even answer the door, no matter how well you sang. After the novelty wore off, you were just another beggar, and this was a banner day for beggars. My father, the postman's son, would wear his Sunday best, save for some walking shoes and a bright green scarf around his neck. The latter was his lone concession to an ancient tradition that would have dressed their leader, an older boy with a strong baritone, in straw and blackface and festooned my father with every piece of colored ribbon from their mothers' dressers. In the town, some of the more established wren boys still bothered with the old trappings, often to the detriment of some poor wren. My father's wren boys were more pragmatic. The town was two miles away an