The Cutty Wren (short story)

The Cutty Wren was the fifth short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas. It was written by Ann Kelly. It featured the Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield.

Summary
The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive in Middleton on Boxing Day, as the villagers celebrate the festivities with their traditional ceremony known as ‘Cutting the Wren’. But as the men, women, children and morris dancers carry the model house containing the ‘wren’ through the village, several of the reliquary’s bearers collapse to the ground; examining them, the Doctor discovers that something has stripped the men of their metabolic energy, and he deduces that the wren is of alien origin. With the help of a pioneering electrical engineer named Isaiah, the Doctor snatches the wren and takes it away for examination; however, before he can cut it open, he realises that the artefact is in fact alive – and clearly terrified. As the villagers converge outside Isaiah’s house and demand the return of the wren, the Doctor uses the engineer’s new electrical equipment to super-charge the alien, allowing it to return home – and giving the astonished villagers the chance to see their wren going up to heaven.

Characters

 * Second Doctor
 * Jamie McCrimmon
 * Victoria Waterfield

Continuity
to be added