Twelve Days of Christmas-for teaching catechism?

Subject: RE: Twelve Days of Christmas
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Dec 06 - 06:15 PM

Far up, IanC noted the occurrence of the "TDOC" in a 1780 printing.

According to the editor (unsigned, W. N. Newell at the time?) of JAFL, 1900, vol. 13, no. 50, pp. 229-230, the following version was obtained from a Miss Nichols, Salem, Mass., about 1800. The rhyme was very popular in New England.

TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

1. The first day of Christmas my true love sent to me
A parteridge upon a pear tree.
2. The second day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Two Turtle doves and a parteridge upon a pear tree.
3. Three French hens, etc.
4. Four Colly birds, etc.
5. Five gold rings, etc.
6. Six geese a laying, etc.
7. Seven squabs a swimming, etc.
8. Eight hounds a running, etc.
9. Nine bears a beating, etc.
10. Ten cocks a crowing, etc.
11. Eleven lords a leaping, etc.
12. Twelve ladies a dancing, etc.

Subject: RE: Twelve Days of Christmas
From: Joe_F
Date: 26 Dec 06 - 08:30 PM

As sung by Jean Ritchie's dad while the children were finishing up the dishes in 1930:

Twelve days of Christmas, sent my sweetheart
Twelve studs a-squealin,
Leven bulls a-bellerin,
Ten hares a-runnin,
Nine cows a-roarin,
Eight maids a-waitin,
Seven swans a-swimmin,
Six geese a-layin,
Five goldy rings,
Four colly birds,
Three French hens,
Two turkle-doves --
AND A PATTERGE IN A PEAR-BUSH!

-- _Singing Family of the Cumberlands_, Chap. 10

I read that chapter yesterday, or it wouldn't have been Christmas.

Subject: RE: Twelve Days of Christmas
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Dec 06 - 08:32 PM

Thanks, Joe F- One that kids will like.

Subject: RE: Twelve Days of Christmas
From: GUEST,Gadaffi
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 05:54 AM

Roger Jenken (featuring Ken Langsbury) sing one version of this with the line 'gaping wide-mouthed bullocking frog' which I had the impression that Ken wrote or adapted. I recorded Ken singing it with The Songwainers at Sidmouth in 2004, but with a slightly different arrangement.

The last lines go:
The dogs did bark, the children laughed,
The mayor of Gloucester he did scoff,
at the gaping wide-mouthed bullocking frog'.

Subject: RE: Songbooks: A Basic Folk Library
From: TRON____
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 08:38 PM

I am looking for the ancient french version the 12 days was based on 500 to 1000 years ealier, I beiieve it would be 12 plants rather than the things said today, I have found some meaningless references, but no direct links yet, someone out there must know?, please help... I do not need the french translatation of the 12 days of Christmas, that is everywhere.
Thanks
Tron

Subject: RE: Twelve Days of Christmas
From: TRON____
Date: 23 Dec 10 - 09:44 PM

all that lost time, recorded by rome and kept hidden, so we have gaps we cannot explain... so sad, to have to seach and guess when it is all written down day by day by priests for thousands of years, each in their own community and saved in rome?
To bad so sad, blind faith,...ok

Subject: RE: Twelve Days of Christmas-for teaching catechism?
From: Lighter
Date: 05 Dec 15 - 01:20 PM

It looks like the song become popular *in the United States* only after Burl Ives recorded it in 1951.

The art-music version (which is the one sung today)appeared around 1910 in Great Britain, but my impression is that it wasn't much sung in the U.S. A newspaper search finds very few references before the early '50s. After that they're everywhere.

The Philadelphia Inquirer of Dec. 6, 1903, included the song in an article on "Christmas Games in Far Places," had to give the (presumably unfamiliar)words, and described at as sung "in the West Indies" (where it had been brought "in the time of our great-grandfathers").