“An Alectoris rufa in a Pyrus communis”

At this time of year you may be unlucky enough to find yourself cajoled into joining in that interminable song “The 12 days of Christmas”.

It begins, “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me / A partridge in a pear tree”, and these words are then repeated ad nauseam as the verses lengthen and gradually incorporate 11 other gifts.

But what is the origin of this song? It first appeared in print in in a book called ‘Mirth without mischief’ published in 1780, author unknown. However, there is evidence that the song is centuries older and was originally translated from the French.

Ornithological evidence for a French origin is provided by the association of partridge and tree, since Britain’s native grey partridge, Perdix perdix, rarely takes to trees, unlike the French, or red-legged, partridge, Alectoris rufa. This native of France and Iberia was not seen in Britain before the 17th century, when it was introduced as a game bird. (It now outnumbers its grey cousin.)

Another suggestion is that the reference to a pear tree (Pyrus communis) arises from an error in  translation. The French for partridge is perdrix, pronounced “pear dree”, so that “partridge” and “pear tree” could be English and French for the same thing.

The partridge of the song may well have its ultimate origin in Greek myth. Perdix was a talented youth whose jealous uncle Daedalus pushed him off a high tower. The goddess Athena, to whom the pear tree was sacred, intervened and saved him by turning him into a bird.

Christian tradition gives various symbolic meanings to the song’s 12 gifts. One theory is that the partridge and pear tree represent Jesus Christ and the cross on which He was crucified. This ties in with a hypothesis that the song was originally a mnemonic used by Catholics to teach the faith to their children secretly when Catholicism was suppressed in England.

But we may never know what any of it really means.