Twelve Days of Christmas, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer's true love gives gifts throughout Christmastide, with the quantity of gifts increasing each day
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1780 (Mirth without Mischief)
KEYWORDS: Christmas cumulative
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South),Scotland(Aber),Wales) US(Ap,NE,SE,So) Canada(West)
REFERENCES (26 citations):
Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, pp. 512-513, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text)
Flanders/Olney-BalladsMigrantInNewEngland, pp. 213-216, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders/Brown-VermontFolkSongsAndBallads, pp. 86-87, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Linscott-FolkSongsOfOldNewEngland, pp. 52-54, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sharp-OneHundredEnglishFolksongs 96, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Mi 729, "Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 fragment)
Gundry-CanowKernow-SongsDancesFromCornwall, p. 38, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text plus a Cornich translation, 1 tune)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore2 52, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (3 texts, though two are summarized)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore4 52, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (2 excerpts, 2 tunes)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #218, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Browne-AlabamaFolkLyric 36, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brewster-BalladsAndSongsOfIndiana 94, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (2 texts, apparently summarized)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 124, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ritchie-SingingFamilyOfTheCumberlands, p. 172, "Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text)
Thomas/Leeder-SinginGatherin, p. 38, "Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie/Opie-OxfordDictionaryOfNurseryRhymes 100, "The first day of Christmas" (3 texts)
Baring-Gould-AnnotatedMotherGoose #424, pp. 196-199, "(The First Day of Christmas)"
Greig/Duncan3 637, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text)
Montgomerie/Montgomerie-ScottishNurseryRhymes 123, "Thirteen Yule Days" (1 text)
Fireside-Book-of-Folk-Songs, p. 246, "Good King Wenceslas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 384, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text)
SongsOfAllTime, p. 29, "Twelve Days of Christmas" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, XMAS12DY*
ADDITIONAL: Robert Chambers, The Popular Rhymes of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1870 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 42-43, "Yule Days"
Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928, notes to #258, ("On the First Day of Christmas") (1 text)
Ian Bradley, _The Penguin Book of Carols_ (1999), #59, "On the First Day of Christmas" (1 text)
Roud #68
RECORDINGS:
John Thomas, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" [sung in Welsh] (on Saskatch01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The First Day of Yule" (form)
SAME TUNE:
The Ten Days of Finals (File: EM373)
Russian Convoy Escort's Song (File:Tawn068)
Kiwi Twelve Days of Christmas (New Zealand parodies) (Garland-FacesInTheFirelight-NZ, p. 297)
NOTES [666 words]: Chambers, p. 47, cites his source as "a large manuscript collection of hitherto unpublished Scottish songs, by Mr P. Buchan." - BS
A legend (passed to me by a friend, with no authorities cited) claims that this was a covert Catholic catechism, composed to sneak by the Protestant authorities.
The Baring-Goulds offer some minor supporting evidence, in that a partridge (for the first day) is "known as a bird that deserts its young" -- hence the idea of people who have deserted their faith.
Possible, I suppose -- but clearly most people who have sung the song know nothing of such things, and many of their heavily-folk-processed versions would not be suitable for such purposes (assuming the original was).
Ian Bradley in the Penguin Book of Carols, on the other hand, claims it's a drinking forfeit: You have to remember all the gifts offered by previous givers and add one of your own. The problem with this theory, of course, is that the gifts are stereotyped.
They may be even more stereotyped than we realize, in fact. The Baring-Goulds argue that the "five gold rings" of the fifth verse are in fact the rings on the neck of a pheasant (though those rings aren't golden on any pheasant I've seen), meaning that the first seven gifts are all birds. They also argue for a French origin for the piece.
The Opies conclude that the meaning of the song "has yet to be satisfactorily explained." In light of the variety of explanations offered, I think that would be my conclusion also.
A handful of versions of this -- that of the Montgomeries, and Gomme's "B," and Chambers -- are clearly recensionally different: The verses begin, "The king sent his lady on the (first, second, third...) Yule day." The final line is, "Who learns my carol, and carries it away." This may include *thirteen* Yule days. I thought seriously about calling this a separate song -- but the general form appears related, and so are many of the gifts. Besides, most people would probably seek the song here. But it should be clear that it's a deliberate rewrite.
There is a partial French analogy, "La Perdriole" or "The Twelve Months of the Year"; it can be found in Maud Karpeles, Folk Songs of Europe, Oak, 1956, 1964, p. 130. It counts the months of the year rather than the days of Christmas, and many of the gifts are different -- but it ends (at least in the Karpeles translation) with "Two turtle-doves, And a little partridge... in the woods."
We should be cautious with the French song, though. Not all texts follow this format, though it appears all are cumulative. Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageur, 1931 (I use the 1987 Minnesota Historical Society Press edition), pp. 115-117, examines several versions of the song she calls "Une Perdriole." All are cumulative, but the number of cycles varies, and it counts days in the month of May, not months of the year. I am inclined to suspect that this song began simply as a cumulative song and was perhaps even adapted toward the English form.
David Fowler, in J. Burke Severs and Albert Hartung, editors, A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, in ten volumes with continuous page numbering; Volume 6 (edited by Hartung), Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1980, p. 1764, suggests that this a song he calls "I have a new garden" "lies behind" this song. It is in the Sloane Manuscript ({MSSloane2593}, London, British Library, MS. Sloane 2593), folio 11b, which means that there is a strong change it is traditional. (For background on the Sloane Manuscript, including a list of all the items in it that are indexed, see the notes to "Robyn and Gandeleyn" [Child 115]. This particular item -- Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #1302; DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #2172 -- opens "I have a newe gardyn and nowe is begunne.") I would agree that it is related to a more recent English song -- but the song is not "The Twelve Days"; it is "I Had a Little Nut Tree." See "Nut Tree" for a discussion of "I Have a New Garden." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: FO213

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