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@Floppy@mastodon.me.ukBy the thirteenth day of Christmas, my true love had given to me:
* 12 partridges in pear trees
* 22 turtle doves
* 30 French hens
* 36 calling birds
* 40 gold rings
* 42 geese a-laying
* 42 swans a-swimming
* 40 maids a-milking
* 36 ladies dancing
* 30 lords a-leaping
* 22 pipers piping
* 12 drummers drumming
Honestly I’m not entirely sure what to do with them all.
I only wanted a PlayStation.
There are now 140 strange people milling around my house, and 184 birds crapping absolutely everywhere. There are also 40 cows outside which presumably came along with the maids, hanging around in the pear tree orchard. It’s absolute chaos.
@Floppy that's 140 human slaves
@tmcfarlane … in an insect nation! AAAAAAA-AAA-AAA-AAAAH!
@Floppy “Look Nigel, I don't care if you get the wallpaper pasting tables out the garage, we are not going to fit that many people in the dining room!”
@Floppy (FWIW, they’re all actually birds, apparently…) [citation needed]
@Floppy My cursory research turned up nothing but a reference to ring necked pheasants as the 5 gold rings. Sure I read something on here recently that gave a 100% bird interpretation (barring pear tree). I did, however, learn about the Christmas Price Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Price_Index
@gilesdring “T he 2020 index did not include nine Ladies Dancing, ten Lords-A-Leaping, eleven Pipers Piping, or twelve Drummers Drumming due to COVID-19 restrictions on live performances.”
This is very much my kind of whimsy.
@Floppy @gilesdring should have also included the cost of N95 masks for all the maids milking
(she/her) @gilesdring @Floppy Stephen Moss aruged this in his book Twelve Birds of Xmas, but I do not fully buy it!
4 calling birds = colly birds, blackbirds
5 gold rings = yoldrings, aka yellow hammers
8 maids a milking = nightjars (weirdest one, supposed to suckle on goats in folklore ...)
9 ladies dancing = cranes
10 lords leaping = black grouse
11 pipers = sand pipers
12 drummers = woodpeckers
@agvbergin @Floppy That sounds like the list I saw. Thanks! It always bugged me that the gifts were avian (apart from the rings) up to date seven, then increasingly grand humans. Not from the “human traffic” element so much as the consistency of gift giving.
@Floppy 141, provided you're at home.