Twelfth Night

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While eight maids milked nine ladies were dancing. Because ten lords wanted to leap one of the maids had to dance, which left the eleven pipers fuming as there were only seven maids left to ask, and the twelve drummers left off their drumming to fight because there were no more maids to ask, until it was realised that not all the pipers and drummers were men as first thought.

So the fight was called off, they all had a glass of warm milk (taken from the buckets which hadn’t yet been kicked over in the dancing) and they retired yawning to bed, finally leaving the love birds alone on the twelfth day of Christmas.

But the true loves were already lying exhausted on the sofa. It had been a trying day.

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Twelve Days of Christmas

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The year’s eve

On this, the seventh day of Christmas, my true love has given me
seven swans, six geese,
five goldfinches, four blackbirds,
three hens, two doves
and a blinking partridge.

That’s twenty-eight birds just on this day,
not forgetting the previous six days.
Doesn’t he know the mess all these birds
in one pear tree make over just one week?
And all the feeding they require?

And then there’s the hissing, the honking,
the twittering, the whistling,
the cackling, the cooing
and the rasping, day in, day out.
I can’t bear it!

And there are five more days to go!

Make it stop!

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Twelve Days of Christmas

Goose a-laying

He once had a goose that laid some eggs, of gold each were the same —
until his true love hoped to see from where the gold all came.
But geese are good with warning calls and since he gave her seven
they raised th’alarm when their time came to be dispatch’d to heaven.

Moral: Raise a din to save your skin.

6/ Twelve Days of Christmas

Spinks

Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail)

Five gold rings? Why? To symbolise eternity?
Five gold rings: by showing one’s fidelity
so suitable as signs to give to our true loves!
But after gifting partridge and three turtle doves,
fancy French hens and a choir of blackbirds,
surely expectations are running now to words
which indicate to all some feathered friends?
Consider now the goldfinch, tinier than French hens.

Its liquid tinkling sounds are delightful to our ears,
‘finch’ an onomatopoeic version of its pinks.
Its striking blood-red mask’s said to spring from Christ’s own tears,
and the Scots and rural English call them ‘spinks’.
The flash of yellow seen on each and every wing
of these cheerful birds brings joy to every heart.
And their friendly chatterings as they trill and peep and sing
speaks of hopes of never ever being apart.

Now believe me when I say that the things of which one sings
in the carol may not be the things one thinks.
For the gifts the true love brings when one sings of golden rings
could be goldfinches or rightly golden spinks!

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5/ Twelve Days of Christmas

Collybirds

Blackbird (Turdus merula)

Four coal-black birds sitting in a tree so high,
hoping they’ll be never found baking in a pie.
Four days into Yuletide they are just a little miffed
finding themselves singing, caged, presented as a gift.

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4/ Twelve Days of Christmas

Fancy that

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Fancy, foreign and French:
trois poules,
deux touterelles,
et la perdrix, ideal
for a Christmas meal.

Now what other birds do I
need baked in that pie?

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3/ Twelve Days of Christmas

Unwavering

Sophie Anderson, ‘The Turtle Dove’

Murmuring tur tur
assuring its partner dove
unwavering love

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2/ The Twelve Days of Christmas

A promised partridge

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To celebrate the Saviour’s birth
He gave to her a stick in earth.
As promised to his love most true
A tree from that bare stick soon grew
And pears did from its branches form
To show his love for her stayed warm.

But she was troubled when she heard
him promise he’d give her the bird…

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The Twelve Days of Christmas 1