"On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, fiiiiiive gooooolden riiiiings..."
The 12 Days of Christmas is one of the most famous holiday songs always sung every year. The lyrics make it interesting for calendar gifts during the festive season and build anticipation for the final day - the 25th of December.
A viral tweet from astrophysics doctor Anna Hughes has people reanalyzing the lyrics of the famous Christmas song.
Here's what she said and how the internet is reacting to it.
Dr. Hughes' tweet now has 92,000-plus likes on Twitter which is a lot considering people rarely engage others on the app. The doctor said "five golden rings" from the lyrics didn't mean literal golden rings like we've all thought but "ring-necked pheasants."
That discovery made people quiz Hughes in the comments while cracking jokes about the other actions in the 12 Days of Christmas. They refused to believe their "childhood" was a lie asking what the other lyrics meant, including the "Milking Maids," and "Leaping Lords."
The most curious part of the post came when Twitter users asked if the song was only about birds and if that meant the "true love" only wanted birds. The feathered animals appear several times in the song, including,
"A partridge in a pear tree" - Day 1
"Two Turtledoves" - Day 2
"Three French Hens" - Day 3
"Four Calling Birds" - Day 4
"Six Geese" - Day 6
"Seven Swans" - Day 7
The milking maids are the second group not about birds in the lyrics after the golden rings. Now that Hughes has "burst everyone's bubble" they're the first.
Dr. Hughes wasn't the first to note this misconception in "five golden rings," and she most likely learned her information from Mike Bergin's 10,000 Birds. Christian scholars linked the five golden rings to the first five books of the Old Testament - The Pentateuch.
Some tweeps are taking the comedic route by linking the rings to Sonic the Hedgehog. See the tweets below,
While the theory seemed ridiculous, it's way better than receiving people from your true love, one user rightly noted.
Meanwhile, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources is against gifting true loves wild birds of any kind for Christmas. You can try other gift options like jewelry, domestic pets, clothing items, or anything they love.
