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Happy Tenth Day of Christmas, the day when someones's true love gave to them (according to a song) ten pipers piping, nine drummers drumming; as well as eight maids a milking, seven swans a swimming, six geese a laying, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.
The web-page, 12 Birds Of Christmas, has this to say re The Tenth Day of Christmas: "We sing the song with the ten lords a-leaping, but originally it was ten pipers piping, at least in England. In earliest known variant found in North America, on the Tenth Day of Christmas, the true love sent ten Cocks A-Crowing. It's all the same, however. Cocks and sandpipers were both legendary for being noisy, excitable, vain and arrogant, feisty, and sexually aggressive It was shortly after the broadside was published that the word 'rooster' replaced 'cock' in polite company in North America. That may help explain why we don't hear that version today..."
In honor of the gift of pipers piping on this Tenth Day of Christmas, I've posted an illustration by Roberta Baird, whose whose other bird illustration I included in yesterday's post here on Blogger.
