The Wren-boys in Ireland, who are also called Droleens, go from house to house for the purpose of levying contributions, carrying one or more of these birds in the midst of a bush of holly, gaily decorated with colored ribbons; which birds they have, like the Manx mummers, employed their morning in killing. The following is their song; of which they deliver themselves in most monotonous music:-- "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 will rest; But if you draw it of the small, It won't agree with these Wren-boys at all." If an immediate acknowledgment, either in money or drink, is not made in return for the civility of their visit, some such nonsensical verses as the following are added:-- "Last Christmas-day, I turned the spit, I burned my fingers (I feel it yet), A cock sparrow flew over the table, The dish began to fight with the ladle. "The spit got up like a naked man, And swore he'd fight with the dripping pan; The pan got up and cocked his tail, And swore he'd send them all to jail." The story told to account for the title of "king of all birds," here given to the wren, is a curious sample of Irish ingenuity, and is thus stated in the clever "Tales of the Munster Festivals," by an Irish servant in answer to his master's inquiry:-- "Saint Stephen! why what the mischief, I ask you again, have I to do with Saint Stephen?" "Nothen, sure, sir, only this being his day, when all the boys o' the place go about that way with the wran, the king of all birds, sir, as they say (bekays wanst when all the birds wanted to choose a king, and they said they'd have the bird that would fly highest, the aigle flew higher than any of 'em, till at last when he couldn't fly an inch higher, a little rogue of a wran that was a-hide under his wing took a fly above him a piece, and was crowned king, of the aigle an' all, sir), tied in the middle o' the holly that way you see, sir, by the leg, that is. An old custom, sir." Vainly have we endeavored to arrive at the probable origin of hunting and killing these little birds upon this day. The tradition commonly related is by no means satisfactory. It is said that a Danish army would have been surprised and destroyed by some Irish troops, had not a wren given the alarm by pecking at some crumbs upon a drum-head,--the remains of the sleeping drummer's supper; which roused him, when he instantly beat to arms. And that from this circumstance the wren became an object of hatred to the Irish.