An arrangement of the national song of Tristan da Cunha arranged for Brass Quintet. The Cutty Wren and its variants like The Hunting of the Wren are traditional English folk songs. The origins and meaning of the song are disputed. It is thought by some to represent the human sacrifice of the Year King, or the symbolic substitute slaughter of the wren as "king of the birds" at the end of the year for similar purposes, and such songs are traditionally sung on Boxing Day (26 December), just after the winter solstice. 26 December is sometimes called: "St. Stephen's Day" or "Wren Day". These rituals are discussed in The Golden Bough. It is number 236 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
Tristan da Cunha (pronunciation: /ˈtrɪstən də ˈkuːnjə/), colloquially
Tristan, is the name of both a remote group of volcanic islands in the
south Atlantic Ocean and the main island of that group. It is the most
remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying 2,000 kilometres (1,200
mi) from the nearest inhabited land, Saint Helena, and 2,400
kilometres (1,500 mi) from the nearest continental land, South
Africa. It is 3,360 kilometres (2,090 mi) from South America. The
territory consists of the main island, named Tristan da Cunha, which has
a northsouth length of 11.27 kilometres (7.00 mi) and an area of 98
square kilometres (38 sq mi), along with the smaller, uninhabited
Nightingale Islands and the wildlife reserves of Inaccessible and Gough
islands. As of September 2016, the main island has 265 permanent
inhabitants. Meanwhile, the other islands are uninhabited, except for
the personnel of a weather station on Gough Island.
Tristan da Cunha is part of the British overseas territory of Saint
Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. This includes Saint Helena and
equatorial Ascension Island, some 3,730 kilometres (2,318 mi) to the
north of Tristan.
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