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Song: Twelve days of Christmas
by RS  admin@creationpie.com : 1024 x 640


1. Song: Twelve days of Christmas
Twelve days of Christmas

The "twelve days of Christmas", is a cumulative song first published in the 1780. It started with pagan origins.
 
How many total gifts when the song is sung (sing, sang, sung) through completely?
The Christmas song "The twelve days of Christmas", in the final verse, has 12 lines, or parts, and 78 gifts. The number 78 is an example of a "triangular number". The song is sung over and over.


2. Yule log custom
(England) Yule log custom (pagan winter feast)

3. Epiphany
The 12 days are the 12 days after Christmas day until Epiphany, when, traditionally, the Wise Men visited the baby Jesus.

At one time, this was a pagan festival time, but was taken over by the church and given religious significance.

Here is the last verse.

4. Final verse
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me:
    12 Drummers Drumming, 11 Pipers Piping,
    10 Lords *a Leaping, 9 Ladies Dancing
    8 Maids *a Milking, 7 Swans *a Swimming
    6 Geese *a Laying, 5 Golden Rings,
    4 Calling Birds, 3 French Hens,
    2 Turtle Doves, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

*Older English often used "a" before verbs such as "a Hunting" we shall go.
Calling birds were collie birds or coal birds or black birds.
Turtledoves, sound tur-tur-tur, had nothing to do with turtles.

5. Triangular number 12
Twelve days of Christmas Twelve days of Christmas

The Christmas song "The twelve days of Christmas", in the final verse, has 12 lines, or parts, and 78 gifts. The number 78 is an example of a "triangular number". The song is sung over and over.
 
How many total gifts?


Information sign More: Triangular number 12

6. Like a pub song
Many people think of the song "Twelve days of Christmas" as a somewhat nonsensical pub type of song similar to the following. How about secular pub songs such as the following?

7. Code
The persecuted Catholic church in Britain gave each part a religious significance for teaching purposes.

Note: This origin is disputed, as these meanings may have been added later.

8. Origins
This song originated as an important teaching song of the Catholic church in England, where the Anglican church persecuted all others, including especially the Catholic's - with imprisonment, torture, and death by painful execution - even children (there were no age restrictions).

9. Memory theater
Each verse is a code for a special meaning to help remember the faith.

The technique of "memory theater" is to imagine a journey where thing seen relates to something that needs to be remembered.

Education used to have many jingles, rhymes, songs, etc., to help remember important things.

10. A partridge in a pear tree

11. Two turtle doves

12. Three French Hens

13. Four calling birds

14. Four calling birds
The original "Twelve days of Christmas" had "four colly birds" where "colly" meant "black". That is "four black birds" where "colly" meant "coal".

In "A midsummer night's dream", Shakespeare uses the phrase "brief as the lightning in the collied night".

The phrase "four colly birds" had become "four calling birds" in the 1909 Frederic Austin version.

Information sign More: Mondegreens: misheard lyrics

15. Five golden rings

16. Six geese a laying

17. Seven swans a swimming

18. Eight maids a milking
Here is a quick summary of the Beatitudes. Each starts with "Blessed are".

19. Nine ladies dancing

20. Ten lords a leaping

21. Eleven pipers piping

22. Twelve drummers drumming

23. End of persecution
By the time the persecution of Catholics officially ended, the song had taken on a life of it's own. The original meaning was lost to many who never knew the original intended purpose.

24. End of page

by RS  admin@creationpie.com : 1024 x 640