![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Caught was my eye, by a curious ornament on a tree. Printed on it, "Four Colly Birds". A nearby ornament of the same make expressed "...Pipers Piping".
Mightily confused was I, by the "colly" birds. Surely "calling" birds, it's supposed to be... birds a-calling, like birds a-singing and a-tweeting, isn't it so? Or could all these years the lyrics I have misheard, of the days of twelve? Quickly to a web search, I tapped.
The great web of knowledge issued forth an answer. "Calling birds" an Americanization, it is. The "colly birds" to blackbirds originally did refer. Four black birds. Four black birds to be eaten! Three french hens, to be eaten! Seven swans, likely to be eaten! Five rings! FIVE GOLDEN RINGS! AAAHHH THE SACRILEGE!!! THE RINGS AREN'T EVEN RINGS! Ring-necked pheasants, to be EATEN!!!!
The holiday song innocuous no more!
And the partridge in the pear tree? Surely now one would expect the partridge and the pears all to be eaten in the great slaughterous carnage too, wouldn't we not? But nay! Christ and Athena, they are proclaimed to be!
Ah! Blessed relief! The great web of knowledge has issued forth an alternate answer. The five rings, still rings they be! Ah, mercy me! Perhaps the birds alive may be?
Mightily confused was I, by the "colly" birds. Surely "calling" birds, it's supposed to be... birds a-calling, like birds a-singing and a-tweeting, isn't it so? Or could all these years the lyrics I have misheard, of the days of twelve? Quickly to a web search, I tapped.
The great web of knowledge issued forth an answer. "Calling birds" an Americanization, it is. The "colly birds" to blackbirds originally did refer. Four black birds. Four black birds to be eaten! Three french hens, to be eaten! Seven swans, likely to be eaten! Five rings! FIVE GOLDEN RINGS! AAAHHH THE SACRILEGE!!! THE RINGS AREN'T EVEN RINGS! Ring-necked pheasants, to be EATEN!!!!
The holiday song innocuous no more!
And the partridge in the pear tree? Surely now one would expect the partridge and the pears all to be eaten in the great slaughterous carnage too, wouldn't we not? But nay! Christ and Athena, they are proclaimed to be!
Ah! Blessed relief! The great web of knowledge has issued forth an alternate answer. The five rings, still rings they be! Ah, mercy me! Perhaps the birds alive may be?