On the fourth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
4 Colly birds…
Ummm…
Calling birds?
Collie birds?
How about Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John?
So, are we naming our birds now?
Of course not!
In more recent history someone thought they could give a spiritual meaning to the children’s rhyme
12 Days of Christmas
and this is how the whole idea of
‘The true meaning’
came to be popular.
Actually, there was no hidden meaning, no deep belief that it could teach children about major events/people from the Bible and no persecution, in the original versions.
Wow!
That turned what I always have heard right upside down!
Go ahead and use ‘12 Days’ as a great way to remember some major events/people/books from the Bible.
Just don’t add in the myth about persecution, etc.
The first printed edition in 1780 says
‘Four colly birds’.
A colly bird is nothing more than a black bird, or even just a catch-all phrase for songbird.
‘Coly’ was slang for ‘black’ in the 1760’s.
The roots may go back to collier
which is a coal miner.
A colliery is a coal mine.
So sometimes it is spelled
‘4 colley birds’
As language evolves to fit current times,
the colly birds became
‘4 Calling birds’
when Frederic Austin put the rhyme to a melody in 1909. This is the tune we are most familiar with nowadays.
‘Calling birds’ can easily be used for birds
that ‘call’, like songbirds.
This also fits with the theme that the first 6 birds in the song were common ‘eating’ birds that frequented the dining table at that time.
There was even a chef’s ‘trick’ where live blackbirds were put inside a pastry crust, and quickly cooked so that when the pie was cut into the blackbirds were still alive and flew out of the pie, to the delight of all the diners.
I doubt the birds were too thrilled.
Do not try this at home.
Irenagasha Photography
People around the world still eat songbirds, especially in the Mediterranean.
11-36 million songbirds are killed or captured every year.
In Italy alone 5 million songbirds are killed every year. This has caused many species to be placed on endangered lists.
From an article by Gil Michelini, 12/2011
Next I have an origami bird for you to make. These would make charming additions to your Christmas decorating.
While it says ‘dove’ I think it could be any bird.
Here is a nice simple line drawing you can use for many different types of crafts-
That’s it for day 4!
‘Til next time,
Inkspired
In addition to websites I looked at and are listed on Days 1-3, here are some more:
blog.nature.org
Etsy.com
lincolnshireworld.com
Merriam-Webster
Oxford English Dictionary
The Guardian, article by Peter Armenti
Naturalist Jim Hurley
blogs.loc.gov
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