‘On the fifth day of Christmas
My true love gave to me -
5 golden rings’
I’ve had the hardest time with this day because we’re talking here about, well, gold rings.
They are gold.
They are in the shape of rings.
Bo—-ring.
Even these have at least little diamonds!
‘On the fifth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me…
5 gold rings with little diamonds!’
Okay, doesn’t really have the same kind of rhyming, does it?
to this children’s game,
they like to attribute 5 gold rings to mean
The Pentateuch, or The Torah.
(That is simply the first 5 books
in the Bible.)
You can certainly do that if you wish, just please don’t insist that the original had any hidden meanings to it.
Yes, many ‘nursery rhymes’ DO have
Hidden meanings, usually a slur about the current
political situation, kings/queens, etc.
But not all, and this seems to be the case with this one.
Just a fun forfeit game played as a parlor pastime.
I like the way artist Sandra Boynton interprets this verse -
These next 5 gold rings
are my kind of rings -
Oh yeah!
I suppose if they were big enough you could do this with 5 gold rings -
You could make some paper chains out of gold paper
($1 store is great for wrapping paper)
You could make or buy some ‘gold rings’ that are a bit bigger, like these -
I Heart Naptime posted on Pinterest
You could embroider some,
like these done in traditional redwork -
(and no, that’s not a typo, I double checked!)
Feel like cutting something instead?
This is a nice pattern for an X-Acto blade or scrollsaw -
You can also make your own paper rings using Origami. Here is just one example of many different styles I found online-
Fumiaki Shingu drew this one.
I guess I did find some rings that were not the traditional ones after all!
Hope you had fun with me today!
Next up -
“6 geese a’laying”
But what does that mean?….
‘Til next time,
inkspired
