Are there any facts pointing to the true origin of the song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ and its unusual gifts?
I have found a lame explanation (my opinion) [here](http://www.members.carol.net/~asmsmsks/12days.htm#The 12 Days of Christmas -). I find this explanation hard to believe. It cites a newspaper as a source, but its web archives don’t contain the article.
Another different explanation can be found here but this explanation is short and vague.
The allegory theory does seem a bit weak. (ten lords a-leaping = the Ten Commandments?) Such an exercise would only confuse it’s intended audience (illiterate, mideval children).
The “wealthy castles” theory makes a lot more sense. If you’ve read anything about royal celebrations and feasts in mideval Europe, none of the gifts seem too outrageous.
For people that don’t want to click are read, here’s the summary:
12 days of Xmas are from 12/26 to 1/06 (Ephipany).
“12 Days” the song are a type of memory song, where a person starts singing a song, the next person adds a line, the next another line, and so on. This is similar to “There Was An Old Lady” (the one that swallowed a spider, etc.), or kind of like “This Old Man.”
In the original version, the first 7 gifts were all birds. Over time, the 5 gift has changed from 5 gold rings (gold-ringed pheasants, that is) to 5 goldEN rings.
The “hidden Christian symbol” story is an incredible line of bullshit that 10 minutes of thinking should be able to dismiss. Snopes does a very thorough job of demolition.