jenny wren

reesetee The little Jenny Wren has, and always had, a host of human friends and a host of pet names. . . . Everything about the wren, her compactness, her absurd stump of a tail which points heavenward, all endear her to us. Some wrens are ladies, as Jenny Crudle in Yorkshire, or Katie or Kitty Wren in other counties. When she becomes a boy, as in Norfolk, he is Bobby Wren, or in Cheshire Dicky Pug or Stumpy Dick or Stumpy Toddy. Other names for the wren are Gilliver wren in Lincolnshire, in Essex Tidley wren. Even this does not complete the list of nicknames for this popular little bird, which in Surrey is called Puggy wren, in Somersetshire Cutty, and in Devon Titty Todger, though in Huddersfield she has the less pretty one of Runt; while in Sussex she answers, if she feels inclined, to Scutty. . . . In parts of Scotland the wren is known as "Our Lady's hen," which is explained by the Normandy peasants' name for the bird, Poulette de Dieu and Oiseau de Dieu, for they believe that a wren was present at the birth of the Infant Saviour, and that she made her nest in His cradle and brought moss and feathers to form a coverlet for the Holy Child.

-- from Traveller's Rest by Philip Gosse, 1937 Feb 13, 2008