On the 4th Day of Christmas, AMERiders brings to you our Winter Holiday Event! We continue today with the 12 Days of Christmas Origin and Meaning with the 4th verse in the song. But before we do we want to remind about our Winter Holiday Event which now gives you now a full 30% percent off storewide. We would like to thank our wonderfully given owner for that. Also, don’t forget we have our usual Free Shipping on orders over $50 as well. Keep watching the clock above to ensure you get your orders in before the event ends so that we can ensure delivery by Christmas.
To remind you the idea for these posts came to us because the boss loves the song and just loves to drive us nuts singing it. Yes, we’ve done the research and we know this starts on the 25th of December, but however you know that we at AMERIders are not normal so we are going to start this the 12 days before Christmas. We apologize if what follows offends anyone it is not our intention just information that we found online.
Recap of Origin
In England, between 1558 and 1829, it was not legal for Catholics to practice their kind of Christianity in public or private. Being a Catholic was treated as a bad crime. If you even owned a Catholic Bible, you could be put in prison! Catholics were stopped from worshipping because King Henry VIII fell out with the Catholic Church and started his own ‘Protestant’ Church (what is now the Church of England). There were many people who were still Catholics and they worshiped in secret.
‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ was written in England at the beginning of this time. Some people think that it was written to help children learn about their Catholic religion. In the carol, the days are supposed to represent special symbols and have hidden meanings, because it was illegal to have anything in writing that would indicate that you were a Catholic.
But there’s NO evidence that this is true and it seems most likely just to be a folk song and that the special ‘Catholic’ meanings were added at a MUCH later date!
While you are shopping for a great gift or stocking stuffers during our AMERiders Winter Holiday Event, Don’t forget that you get 30% percent off storewide. With our usual Free Shipping on orders over $50 as well.
Variations of the lyrics
The earliest known version of the lyrics was published under the title “The Twelve Days of Christmas sung at King Pepin’s Ball”, as part of a 1780 children’s book, Mirth without Mischief. Subsequent versions have shown considerable variation:
-In the earliest versions, the word “On” is not present at the beginning of each verse—for example, the first verse begins simply “The first day of Christmas”. “On” was added in Austin’s 1909 version, and became very popular thereafter.
-In the early versions, “my true love sent” me the gifts. However, a 20th-century variant has “my true love gave to me”; this wording has become particularly common in North America.
-The 1780 version has “four colly birds”—”colly” being a regional English expression for “black”. This wording must have been opaque to many even in the 19th century: “canary birds”, “colored birds”, “curly birds”, and “Corley birds” are found in its place. Frederic Austin’s 1909 version, which introduced the now-standard melody, also altered the fourth day’s gift to four “calling” birds, and this variant has become the most popular, although “colly” is still found.
-The “five gold rings” may become “five golden rings”, especially in North America. In the standard melody, this change enables singers to fit one syllable per musical note.
-The gifts associated with the final four days are often reordered. For example, the pipers may be on the ninth day rather than the eleventh.
Need a quick gift for an office party or for a surprise guest coming for Christmas Dinner? Check out our Winter Holiday Event, Don’t forget that you get 30% percent off storewide. With our usual Free Shipping on orders over $50 as well.
Song verse explanation.
Also, all the symbols can be used by Protestants and other Christians, not just by Catholics! There was another song called ‘A New Dial’ (also called ‘In Those Twelve Days’), which goes back as far as at least 1625, which gave religious meanings to the 12 Days of Christmas, but NOT so people could practice their faith is secret. If you’d like to know more about this, please go to the 12 Days of Christmas page on snopes.com
On The 4th Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ‘four calling birds’ which are said to be the four Gospels in the New Testament of the Bible. (They could also mean the four major Old Testament prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel; or the four horsemen of the Apocalypse!)
Other information.
The 12 Days of Christmas are now most famous as a song about someone receiving lots of presents from their ‘true love’. However, to get to the song there had to be the days to start with!
The 12 Days of Christmas start on Christmas Day and last until the evening of the 5th January – also known as Twelfth Night. The 12 Days have been celebrated in Europe since before the middle ages and were a time of celebration.
Each of the 12 Days traditionally is celebrated with a feast day for a saint and/or have different celebrations: Day 4 (28th December): The Feast of the Holy Innocents – when people remember the baby boys which King Herod killed when he was trying to find and kill the Baby Jesus.
Stay tuned for tomorrow for our continuation with the 5th Day of Christmas, and also Don’t forget While you’re shopping for great gifts during our AMERiders Winter Holiday Event, that you get 30% percent off on orders over $50 automatically. With our usual Free Shipping on orders over $50 as well.
~And as always….
~Live Free Ride Hard~
~AMERiders
and
Let AMERiders help you with your stocking stuffers and gifts for the 4th Day of Christmas.
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