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[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria visit Middleton to see its morris dancers. The Doctor meets Isiah Saul, who explains that Middleton is the only English county that follows the Cutty Wren tradition.
The morris dancers carrying the wren suddenly collapse with seizures. When other dancers take their place, they too collapse. Isiah, an electrical engineer, believes that the wren is actually a meteorite. When he touches it, he too feels strange.
The Doctor and Isiah take the "wren" to Isiah's workshop while Jamie and Victoria gather information from the locals. The Doctor thinks the wren is an alien artefact that is running low on power and trying to draw it from the morris dancers.
Victoria accidentally lets slip to the locals that the Doctor and Isiah have the wren, and she and Jamie have to rush to Isiah's place to warn them that the villagers are on their way. The Doctor and Isiah free the artefact, and the villagers arrive just in time to see it get sent "to heaven".
Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Isiah tells the Doctor that the Cutty Wren is a Welsh tradition.
- The local pub is the Bell Inn.
- Isiah is from Kent.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The story opens with the lyrics of The Cutty Wren.
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor uses what Isiah describes as a "metal cylinder" which he is "breaking in". The first use of his sonic screwdriver was in TV: Fury from the Deep.
