Instead, a cooked empty pie crust was filled with live birds which when set on the table was cut open and the birds would fly out much to the amusement of the guests. One recipe for blackbird pie found in Dressed Game And Poultry à La Mode published in 1888 describes filling a pie with stuffed blackbirds and fried rump steak before sealing with puff pastry.īut a more popular dish involving blackbirds was not designed to be eaten at all. There are recipes for blackbird pie in historic books. Blackbirds were certainly on the menu in the medieval era but whether they were cooked is up for debate. The word colly means ‘black as coal or soot’ so it would make sense that the gift given on the fourth day was four blackbirds ( Turdus merula). Other variations of colly have included ‘canary’, ‘coloured’, and ‘curly’. Many people interpret a calling bird as a song bird, However, the original song referred to ‘Four Colly Birds’ which over time morphed into the more familiar phrase and which was written down by Frederic Austin in 1909 who also set the carol to the now-standard melody. They were either roasted or enclosed in suet, and were said to be easy to digest, particularly if the bird was cooked several days after being killed. Partridges were considered one of the healthiest of game birds in the medieval era. So perhaps the pear tree is simply a corruption of perdrix, which would have been an easy mistake for an Anglophone at the time who may have not seen the word written down, or even been able to read it. The scientific name for the grey partridge is from the Latin for partridge, and the French word is perdrix. One possible explanation is that something got lost in translation. And in the middle of winter a pear tree would be completely devoid of leaves and fruit, so it seems a strange gift to give. Although the red-legged partridge is more likely to be found sitting in trees, the grey partridge is a strictly ground-dwelling bird that feeds on insects and seeds. Two species are contenders, the red-legged partridge ( Alectoris rufa) that was introduced in the 1700s, and the grey partridge (P erdix perdix), or English partridge, a native bird. The partridge is a member of the pheasant family and has been a traditional game bird in the UK for centuries. We take a look at the birds featured in the carol and suggest what some of the non-ornithological verses could be referring to. No other Christmas carol features birds quite as prominently as The Twelve Days of Christmas. However, this theory has been widely refuted and although the origins of the song are unknown it’s likely that it is secular in nature, perhaps written as a memory game. The partridge in the pear tree is said to represent Christ, and the other verses are meant to refer to parts of the Catholic doctrine. One of the suggestions for the origin of The Twelve Days of Christmas is that it was intended as a ‘catechism song’, used by young Catholics to help them learn the tenets of their faith. The verses were originally presented without music. The Twelve Days of Christmas is an English Christmas carol first published in 1780 in a children’s book Mirth Without Mischief, which also contains the delightfully named ‘Play of the Gaping-wide-mouthed-wadling Frog’, amongst other poems and stories.
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