the Twelve Days of Christmas

[Shawna]

Today I received an e-mail from someone telling me all about the "meaning" of the objects in "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Supposedly they're all covert religious items since at the time the song was written, it was a beheading offense to come out of the closet as a Jesus-believer.

Anyway, I was intrigued so I looked it up on Snopes.com.

And here is, in part, what it said. I found it very interesting....

What we do know is that the twelve days of Christmas in the song are the twelve days between the birth of Christ (Christmas, December 25) and the coming of the Magi (Epiphany, January 6). Although the specific origins of the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas†are not known, it possibly began as a Twelfth Night “memory-and-forfeits†game in which the leader recited a verse, each of the players repeated the verse, the leader added another verse, and so on until one of the players made a mistake, with the player who erred having to pay a penalty, such as offering up a kiss or a sweet. This is how the song was presented in its earliest known printed version, in the 1780 children’s book Mirth Without Mischief. (The song is apparently much older than this printed version, but we do not currently know how much older.) Textual evidence indicates that the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas†was not English in origin, but French. Three French versions of the song are known, and items mentioned in the song itself (the partridge, for example, which was not introduced to England from France until the late 1770s) are indicative of a French origin.

It is possible that “The Twelve Days of The Christmas†has been confused with (or is a transformation of) a song called “A New Dial†( also known as “In Those Twelve Daysâ€), which dates to at least 1625 and assigns religious meanings to each of the twelve days of Christmas (but not for the purposes of teaching a catechism). In a manner somewhat similar to the memory-and-forfeits performance of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,†the song “A New Dial†was recited in a question-and-answer format.

“The Twelve Days of Christmas†is what most people take it to be: a secular song that celebrates the Christmas season with imagery of gifts and dancing and music. Some misinterpretations have crept into the English version over the years, though. For example, the fourth day’s gift is four “colly birds†(or “collie birdsâ€), not four “calling birds.†(The word “colly†literally means “black as coal,†and thus “colly birds†would be blackbirds.) The “five golden rings†refers not to five pieces of jewelry, but to five ring-necked birds (such as pheasants). When these errors are corrected, the pattern of the first seven gifts’ all being types of birds is re-established.

Read the whole article at Snopes - "The Twelve Days of Christmas"

[Carl]

Very interesting. I remember singing this in various school assemblies - the teachers enjoyed breaking us into 12 sections and letting us have at it.

It was also the theme on a recent episode of Top Chef. They had to cook based on one of the 12 days.

[MindCrime]

Anyway, I was intrigued so I looked it up on Snopes.com.

Is there anything Snopes can't do?