I suppose that would make more sense, given all the other birds my true love is sending me.īut I still prefer the familiar version of the carol that emerged in 1909, when Frederic Austin published his arrangement. It’s possible that our gold rings are a corruption of “goldspinks,” a Scottish word for goldfinches. And there’s another theory regarding how the fifth day wasn’t always about jewelry. It’s a game of forfeits-in which each player takes a turn reciting the whole list and adding to it-a game that seems to be the origin of the structure of the lyrics of the carol. In that version, your true love also gives you four ducks quacking on the fourth day. According to one reported version of the lyrics, instead of gold rings, you could have had “five hares running” to deal with (forty total, and…well, they’re hares, so, you know). Really, we should be grateful that the familiar version of the carol includes inanimate objects on the fifth day. I wonder, has she ever given Ringo five gold rings, or would that be a bit “coals to Newcastle”? Er, Liverpool? Presumably, when Ringo sings this carol, Barbara Bach is the “true love” in question. I always imagine the narrator of the carol wearing them all at once, or as many as possible, like Liberace or Ringo Starr. Of course, if you’ve ever done the math, you’ll be aware that my true love intends to send me not just five gold rings but a total of forty by the time Epiphany rolls around on the sixth of January. Yes, I’m going to show you five gold rings, each one cataloged in the Index of Medieval Art database. This time, however, I want to look at a category of object. Typically, in this space, someone from the Index of Medieval Art will explore a topic relating to iconography, some theme or scene rendered in one or more media, perhaps a subject relevant to the season. I mean, if the rings are only “golden” and not actual gold, then why do I want forty of them? Perhaps it’s just that even two notes per syllable is too much melisma for some carolers, so they need the extra syllable to sing. It really doesn’t matter, I suppose, but the word “golden” does seem to devalue the gift. When exactly did “five gooooo-ooooold rings” become “five golll-dennn rings”? The version in Mirth without Mischief is clear about my true love’s having given me “gold” rings, not “golden” rings. Wait…is it “gold rings” or “golden rings”? I’ve heard it both ways, sometimes simultaneously. But all five gold rings were there already. That’s just a lot of leaping lords, I must say! You’ll also notice that the birds on the fourth day were called “colly birds” back then, not “calling birds.” “Colly” just meant black like coal, so what we have is a flock of blackbirds.

And two turtle doves, three French hens, and so on up to the usual seven swans a-swimming and eight maids a-milking, but then there follow nine drummers drumming instead of nine ladies dancing, ten pipers piping instead of ten lords a-leaping, eleven dancing ladies (probably preferable to the usual eleven pipers piping), and no fewer than twelve lords a-leaping instead of twelve drummers drumming. The earliest known version of many different versions to come, it differs from the carol as we usually hear it today only in the order of the gifts from the ninth through the twelfth days.

No music was printed with the lyrics in Mirth without Mischief, but the words are roughly the same as you remember them, possibly representing the oldest printed evidence of the carol.

Five Gold Rings from “The Twelve Days of Christmas sung at King Pepin’s Ball” in Mirth without Mischief (London: Printed by J.

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