19thC Cornish superstitions of the robin.

It is also considered to be very unlucky for a bird to perch on the window–sill of a sick person's room, farewell then to all chances of recovery; and strange birds coming into a house (especially a robin through the back door) foretell the death of some one in it, or connected with the family. I was once where a little child lay dying, a small brown bird sang on the window–sill, the nurse told me that it was waiting to carry away the child's soul. " But when a flea bites a sick person he is sure not to be dangerously ill, as it is well known that they never bite those who have had their deathstroke." The superstitions that you cannot die easily on pillows stuffed with wild birds' feathers, and that life goes out with the tide, are as current here as in other places. Death in Cornwall is often spoken of as "going round land," and "gone dead" is a common idiom. A threat to kill is occasionally conveyed in the words "I will give you your quietus." In some cases it is supposed that life may be restored after death if when the breath stops the body be violently shaken. When a member of a family dies, his death it is said will bring two others with it, from the idea that one misfortune never comes alone. A Cornish country vicarage was lately startled by the tolling at an unwonted hour of the church bell. On sending to ascertain the cause of the disturbance an "old inhabitant was found in the belfry, who had been engaged in the absence or illness of the usual sexton to dig the grave. He said in explanation that in his time it was always usual for the gravedigger to toll the bell three times before breaking the consecrated ground."

J. H. C, Notes and Queries, sth series, vol. ii., August, 1874.

THE ROBIN AND THE WREN.

"Those who kill a robin or a wran,
Will never prosper, boy or man."

This feeling is deeply impressed on every young mind; there are few, therefore, who would injure either of those birds.

I remember that a boy in Redruth killed a robin: the dead robin was tied round his neck, and he was marched by the other boys through the town, all of them singing the above lines.

The robin, despite the belief that it was blessed among birds because a robin plucked a thorn from the crown of thorns on Christ's head; nevertheless, it was considered very unlucky if a robin gained entrance to a house.

I can no longer find where I found the last part about the robin plucking a thorn form the crown of thorn's on Christ's head. That would make for a blessed bird.