Les from Hull wrote:

12 days of Christmas

The explanation given still seems like complete tosh to me (apart from the rather over-stated anti-Catholic laws - do people in the the USA actually believe that?).

I don't know. My guess is most people in the USA never thought about the subject. But there the Presbyterians were, promulgating it as if gospel... so I just copied their assertions. I do think it's an interesting piece, however improbable as history.

So why would apostles be pipers piping, for example? Or Jesus Christ a partridge in a pear tree? Can anyone see any connection? It all seems a bit contrived to me (a bit like Deck o' Cards)

I agree. A few make sense (geese a-laying for creation, and calling [tho should be collie, which makes less sense but better Catholicism] birds for the evangelists), but most seem quite arbitrary and like it must have been harder to teach the mnemonic than the theology ;-)

Liland