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Twelve Days of Christmas

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Twelve Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree

On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

Subsequent verses follow the same pattern.

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This is a pretty odd song, no? What’s going on here with the birds and why would your true love be giving you people? Why does everyone (where I live in the U.S.) learn this song and sing it at Christmas? What does this have to do with Christmas?

I thought this song’s origins and meaning might be interesting, so I decided to look into it. Unfortunately, nobody really knows the answers for sure, though “The Twelve Days of Christmas” refers to the 12 days between Christmas (25 December) and Epiphany (6 January.) The rest is a bit of a mystery. HOWEVER… there are some good theories about the song’s background.

One suggests that this jovial bit of cumulative Christmas music started as part of a children’s “memory and forfeit” game. (via wiki)

Origins

The exact origins and the meaning of the song are unknown, but it is highly probable that it originated from a children’s memory and forfeit game.

The twelve days in the song are the twelve days starting with Christmas Eve to the day before Epiphany (which occurs on 6 January). Twelfth Night is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the evening of January 5th, the day before Epiphany, which traditionally marks the end of Christmas celebrations”.

Illustration of “Twelve Lords a Leaping”, from Mirth Without Mischief

The best known English version was first printed in Mirth without Mischief, a children’s book published in London around 1780. The work was heavily illustrated with woodcuts, attributed in one source to Thomas Bewick.

In the northern counties of England, the song was often called the “Ten Days of Christmas”, as there were only ten gifts. It was also known in Somerset, Dorset, and elsewhere in England. The kinds of gifts vary in a number of the versions, some of them becoming alliterative tongue-twisters. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was also widely popular in the United States and Canada. It is mentioned in the section on “Chain Songs” in Stith Thompson‘s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (Indiana University Studies, Vol. 5, 1935), p. 416.

There is evidence pointing to the North of England, specifically the area around Newcastle upon Tyne, as the origin of the carol. Husk, in the 1864 excerpt quoted below, stated that the carol was “found on broadsides printed at Newcastle at various periods during the last hundred and fifty years”, i.e. from approximately 1714. In addition, many of the nineteenth century citations come from the Newcastle area. Peter and Iona Opie suggest that “if ‘[t]he partridge in the peartree’ is to be taken literally it looks as if the chant comes from France, since the Red Leg partridge, which perches in trees more frequently than the common partridge, was not successfully introduced into England until about 1770″.

Some authors suggest a connection to a religious verse entitled “Twelfth Day”, found in a thirteenth century manuscript at Trinity College, Cambridge; this theory is criticised as “erroneous” by Yoffie. It has also been suggested that this carol is connected to the “old ballad” which Sir Toby Belch begins to sing in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Manner of performance

Many early sources suggest that The Twelve Days of Christmas was a “memory-and-forfeits” game, in which participants were required to repeat a verse of poetry recited by the leader. Players who made an error were required to pay a penalty, in the form of offering a kiss or confection.

Halliwell, writing in 1842, stated that “[e]ach child in succession repeats the gifts of the day, and forfeits for each mistake.”

Salmon, writing from Newcastle, claimed in 1855 that the song “[had] been, up to within twenty years, extremely popular as a schoolboy’s Christmas chant”.

Husk, writing in 1864, stated:

This piece is found on broadsides printed at Newcastle at various periods during the last hundred and fifty years. On one of these sheets, nearly a century old, it is entitled “An Old English Carol,” but it can scarcely be said to fall within that description of composition, being rather fitted for use in playing the game of “Forfeits,” to which purpose it was commonly applied in the metropolis upwards of forty years since. The practice was for one person in the company to recite the first three lines; a second, the four following; and so on; the person who failed in repeating her portion correctly being subjected to some trifling forfeit.

Thomas Hughes, in a short story published in 1864, described a fictional game of Forfeits involving the song:

[A] cry for forfeits arose. So the party sat down round Mabel on benches brought out from under the table, and Mabel began, —

The first day of Christmas my true love sent to me a partridge and a pear-tree;

The second day of Christmas my true love sent to me two turtle-doves, a partridge, and a pear-tree;

The third day of Christmas my true love sent to me three fat hens, two turtle-doves, a partridge, and a pear-tree;

The fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me four ducks quacking, three fat hens, two turtle-doves, a partridge, and a pear-tree;

The fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me five hares running, four ducks quacking, three fat hens, two turtle-doves, a partridge, and a pear-tree;

And so on. Each day was taken up and repeated all round; and for every breakdown (except by little Maggie, who struggled with desperately earnest round eyes to follow the rest correctly, but with very comical results), the player who made the slip was duly noted down by Mabel for a forfeit.

Barnes (1882), stated that the last verse “is to be said in one breath”.

Scott (1892), reminiscing about Christmas and New Year’s celebrations in Newcastle around the year 1844, described a performance thus:

A lady begins it, generally an elderly lady, singing the first line in a high clear voice, the person sitting next takes up the second, the third follows, at first gently, but before twelfth day is reached the whole circle were joining in with stentorian noise and wonderful enjoyment.

Lady Gomme wrote in 1898:

“The Twelve Days” was a Christmas game. It was a customary thing in a friend’s house to play “The Twelve Days,” or “My Lady’s Lap Dog,” every Twelfth Day night. The party was usually a mixed gathering of juveniles and adults, mostly relatives, and before supper—that is, before eating mince pies and twelfth cake—this game and the cushion dance were played, and the forfeits consequent upon them always cried. The company were all seated round the room. The leader of the game commenced by saying the first line. […] The lines for the “first day” of Christmas was said by each of the company in turn; then the first “day” was repeated, with the addition of the “second” by the leader, and then this was said all round the circle in turn. This was continued until the lines for the “twelve days” were said by every player. For every mistake a forfeit—a small article belonging to the person—had to be given up. These forfeits were afterwards “cried” in the usual way, and were not returned to the owner until they had been redeemed by the penalty inflicted being performed.

There is another widely circulated theory about the song, though. All of the above might be true, to some extent, but this theory suggests there might also have been a deeper purpose with the song’s lyrics – namely the perpetuation of an illegal religion right under the nose of the Church of England.

It is believed by some Catholics that the song was a tool used for covertly catechizing young Catholics during the roughly three centuries long period in England wherein Catholicism was illegal.

So… when you sing this song, let it be known that you are probably keeping alive a Christmastide game tradition that dates back to Northern England and the 18th century (if not earlier.) Also, I apologize if you are a devout Protestant learning here for the first time that you may have been unwittingly catechizing young people into Catholicism every Christmas for years of your life.

The other odd thing about this song relates to the gifts themselves. That’s a lot of birds, right? So many birds. Maybe more birds than you can imagine. For more on that, we will turn again to our friends at wiki:

The meaning of each gift

Partridge in a pear tree

An anonymous “antiquarian”, writing in 1867, speculated that “pear-tree” is a corruption of French perdrix ([pɛʁ.dʁi], “partridge“). This was also suggested by Anne Gilchrist, who observed in 1916 that “from the constancy in English, French, and Languedoc versions of the ‘merry little partridge,’ I suspect that ‘pear-tree’ is really perdrix (Old French pertriz) carried into England”. The variant text “part of a juniper tree”, found as early as c. 1840, is likely not original, since “partridge” is found in the French versions. It is probably a corruption of “partridge in a pear tree”, though Gilchrist suggests “juniper tree” could have been joli perdrix, [pretty partridge].

Another suggestion is that an old English drinking song may have furnished the idea for the first gift. William B. Sandys refers to it as a “convivial glee introduced a few years since, ‘A Pie [i.e., a magpie] sat on a Pear Tree,’ where one drinks while the others sing.” The image of the bird in the pear tree also appears in lines from a children’s counting rhyme an old Mother Goose. A pye sate on a pear tree, Heigh OOnce so merrily hopp’d she; Heigh OTwice so merrily, etc.Thrice so, etc.

French hens

Gilchrist suggests that the adjective “French” may mean “foreign”. Sharp reports that one singer sings “Britten chains”, which he interprets as a corruption of “Breton hens”. William and Ceil Baring-Gould also suggest that the birds are Breton hens, which they see as another indication that the carol is of French origin.

Colly birds

The word “colly”, found in the earliest publications, was the source of considerable confusion. Multiple sources confirm that it is a dialectal word, found in Somerset and elsewhere, meaning “black”, so “colly birds” are blackbirds. Despite this, other theories about the word’s origin are also found in the literature, such as that the word is a corruption of French collet (“ruff”), or of “coloured”.

Gold rings

Illustration of “five gold rings”, from the first known publication of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” (1780)

Shahn suggests that “the five golden rings refer to the ringed pheasant“. William and Ceil Baring-Gould reiterate this idea, which implies that the gifts for the first seven days are all birds. Others suggest the gold rings refer to “five goldspinks”—a goldspink being an old name for a goldfinch; or even canaries. However, the 1780 publication includes an illustration that clearly depicts the “five gold rings” as being jewellery.

General

According to The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, “Suggestions have been made that the gifts have significance, as representing the food or sport for each month of the year. Importance [certainly has] long been attached to the Twelve Days, when, for instance, the weather on each day was carefully observed to see what it would be in the corresponding month of the coming year. Nevertheless, whatever the ultimate origin of the chant, it seems probable [that] the lines that survive today both in England and France are merely an irreligious travesty.” In 1979, a Canadian hymnologist, Hugh D. McKellar, published an article, “How to Decode the Twelve Days of Christmas”, in which he suggested that “The Twelve Days of Christmas” lyrics were intended as a catechism song to help young English Catholics learn their faith, at a time when practising Catholicism was against the law (from 1558 until 1829). McKellar offered no evidence for his claim. Three years later, in 1982, Fr. Hal Stockert wrote an article (subsequently posted online, in 1995) in which he suggested a similar possible use of the twelve gifts as part of a catechism. The possibility that the twelve gifts were used as a catechism during the period of Catholic repression was also hypothesised in this same time period (1987 and 1992) by Fr. James Gilhooley, chaplain of Mount Saint Mary College of Newburgh, New York. Snopes.com, a website reviewing urban legends, Internet rumours, e-mail forwards, and other stories of unknown or questionable origin, concludes that the hypothesis of the twelve gifts of Christmas being a surreptitious Catholic catechism is incorrect. None of the enumerated items would distinguish Catholics from Protestants, and so would hardly need to be secretly encoded.

There is a theory that ALL twelve gifts are bird gifts. In addition to the obvious birds, here are explanations for the others, with every bird option being something eaten in Europe in the Medieval period (via Forbes)

It’s just birds all the way down. If you add up all of the birds (keeping in mind you sing about some of them over and over), you end up with 364 total birds:

Partridge: 1 partridge x 12 rounds of the song = 12 partridges
Turtle doves: 2×11 = 22
French hens: 3×10 = 30
Calling/colly birds: 4×9 = 36
Five Golden Rings: 5×8 = 40
Six Geese: 6×7 = 42
Seven Swans: 7×6 = 42
Eight Maids: 8×5 = 40
Nine Ladies: 9×4 = 36
Ten Lords: 10×3 = 30
Eleven Drummers: 11×2 = 22
Twelve Pipers: 12×1 = 12

12+22+30+36+40+42+42+40+36+30+22+12 = 364 (a bird for almost every day of the year)

To be honest, though, I prefer the bird hypothesis. I don’t know what I would do with dozens of artsy and / or milk-providing human beings.

And there you have it. If you’ve made it this far, you are an expert on The Twelve Days of Christmas. Congratulations.

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