By Hannah Wiley, Assistant Features Editor
I asked some friends, “What do you think the origin of the song ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ is?”
“There was this one young guy who was giving a gift to his lovely young maiden. He decided he wanted to give her an absurd amount of birds, so to break it up he decided to come up with other gifts, like maids milking and pipers piping, to give to her as well,” said Maddy Lockwood
Ava Green said, “Growing up, I guess I just thought it was about how his man was really in love with his girl, so he got a bunch of gifts for her. I’m kinda jealous.”
Kaitlin O’Meara tried to add, “I think it's about gifts, and birds, and,” until Lockwood cut her off, breaking into song and exclaiming, “FIIIIIIVE GOOOOLDEN RIIINGSSS!” “That, too,” O’Meara continued, then asking, “What does she need all those birds for? Is it about the origin of a bird zoo?”
Maggie Donnor believed it was, “Probably some old white guy in England that was bored.”
Carson Denny, like many of us, said, “Um, I don’t know. Maybe aliens.”
Clearly, they weren’t much help, so I did some research and found out that “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was an eighteenth century Roud Folk Song that has several different melodies associated with it, the most popular and well-known being the 1909 arrangement by Frederic Austin.
Austin changed the iconic Christmas carol into what everyone knows and loves today. The most prominent aspect of the song he changed was that previously, when singing you would skip the “on” in the beginning of the line. So, instead of singing Austin’s “On the first day of Christmas,” it was originally sung as “The first day of Christmas, the second day of Christmas” and so on.
The 12 days of the song start on Christmas and go to January 6, the Epiphany. The twelfth night is January 5 and marks the end of Christmas celebrations before the Epiphany the next day. This period of time is known in Christian theology as marking the birth of Christ and the coming of Magi.
In some northern regions of England, the song was actually known as “The 10 Days of Christmas.” The exact origin of the song, such as when it first appeared, is hard to determine; however, the first-known version was from a 1780s children book called Mirth With-out Mischief.
Many historians have different theories of the lyrics and versions that the song has. Some say the origin of the song could be French, but most agree that it was probably English. Early versions of the song are seen with the lyrics of “bears a-baiting” or “ships a-sailing,” while some other versions are sung from the perspective of a mother as the gift-giver.
The Catholic News Agency states that the carol actually arose around the mid-1500s. From 1558 to 1829, Roman Catholics were not allowed to openly practice their faith in England, so the song was written for young members of the church.
It was created with the intent to have an open meaning about Christmas, but to also have hidden meanings that were only known by members of the church. Each code word was chosen to be easily understandable to the children, while the “true love” of the song is actually representing Jesus Christ.