Three French Hens | Top Q&A

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and like last year, I will spend the holiday in the northern woods, a few kilometers south of the southern tip of Algonquin Park, on the southern edge of the Canadian Shield. I wrote about the song Twelve Days of Christmas a year ago, and I’m repeating that essay here with some new images and a few additions — including some details about the Three French Hens — that I have known for the past year. I especially like The Twelve Days of Christmas because the words are secular, despite the multitude of religious interpretations. [1]. The song originates from an 18th-century memory game that celebrates the annual period of drunkenness and fun between two religious feasts. Many of those twelve days are about birds being prized at the dinner table. In medieval England, this period after Christmas was presided over by the Lord of Misrule and in Scotland by Abbott of Unreason, both titles which I would be proud to bear.The lyrics of this Christmas song were first published in English in the late 1700s as a rhyme in a book called Mirth without Mischief, possibly derived from a much older French song that has a structure similar structure and content, Les Douze Mois. The now familiar tune was written only until 1905 by the English composer Frederic Austin, who adapted it from a traditional British folk tune. Christmas Day with partridges. On the 5th or 6th of the following days, the gifts are birds, interrupted by music, theme, and mystery by those 5 golden rings. I don’t know why the first 7 presents are birds, but I think there are established psychological and traditional reasons for this but they are probably all about food. There have also been many Christian interpretations of the song, but there is really no evidence to support any of them. In the nearly 238 years since the rhyme was first published in English, there have been at least 20 different versions of these words, especially about birds. Some variation of this is definitely Mondegreens [2], but they are often just attempts to make the words more relevant to modern audiences. Read more: | Top Q&A PARTRIDGE—On the first day of Christmas — always a partridge, except in Scott’s 1892 version, which is a “very pretty peacock.” Some authors suggest that the partridge is the Red-footed Partridge (Alectoris rufa), a very common game bird that was successfully introduced to England from France around 1770, and is more likely to perch on trees. compared with the native and abundant Gray Partridge. (Perdix perdix). But what about that pear tree, which is often said to have religious significance. The French poem that may be the basis for an English rhyme features a partridge representing the first month “Un ‘Perdix Sole”. That version says that the bird flies in the woods (‘qui vol dans les bois’). Perdix is Gray Partridge, in Old French spelled ‘perdrix’ or ‘pertriz’, pronounced something very close to ‘pear tree’. I wonder if the English rhyme was originally ‘partridge and a perdrix’, even though it would have been two birds on the first day. However, it seems to me that the pear tree is actually the perdrix, and has nothing to do with the pear or the tree. TURTLE DOVES are French hens in an 1877 version, and FRANCE HENS on day 3 were ‘fat hens’ in 1864, and turtle pigeons in 1877. There’s a theme here that the first 3 birds are highly prized in the table, a great start to the day. eating period.But why French hens? The Latin word for chicken is gallus and hence the scientific name Gallus gallus . [3]. In Roman times, France was Gaul, and the people who lived there were Gallic. It seems that the simple word combination of the homonyms Gallus and Gallic has irrevocably linked chicken to France. Indeed, a rooster was often an ornament on church steeples in France during the Middle Ages, and the Gallic Rooster (see photo, right) was an important symbol during the French Revolution.Bresse Gauloise too, when the Twelve Days rhyme was written, the French hen was a prized table bird in both France and England. Bresse Gauloise, for example, is sometimes called the ‘queen of fowl and fowl of kings’. This breed originated in France in the late 16th century. La Fleche is also an old French breed from the Loire region, western France, and is famous for its delicate skin. During the 16th century, hens from France were a luxury import from France. In the 19th century, the Houdan, another old breed from west of Paris, was one of France’s main meat breeds, and was imported to North America in 1865.We humans are extremely fond of chicken, and a recent report suggests that the 60 billion chickens we slaughter every year could be the paleontological cue of the Anthropocene. Of all the birds mentioned in the Twelve Days of Christmas, I suspect that someone in 1800 could have predicted that one day French hens and their relatives would become birds. richest in the world, at least by one order. SEND THE BIRD in day 4 was the most interesting for me as the original said ‘gorilla’ and subsequent variations said the birds were ‘canary’, ‘collie’, ‘colley’, ‘ color’, ‘curley’, ‘colored’, ‘corley’, and finally ‘call’ by Austin in 1909 were published with his new tune. I’m surprised no one suggested ‘exorbitant’. ‘Colly bird’ was originally the European Blackbird (Turdus merula) because ‘colly’ means ‘black’ as in ‘coal’, and that is why border collies bear that name. Subsequent versions are inevitably the result of mishearing and misunderstanding. GOLDEN RING but some sources suggest that these are also birds, possibly the European Golden Rooster, known as the golden robin in the 1700s. Others argue that these are the ring-necked Pheasants that are believed to be the ring-necked pheasant. is to have a gold ring around his neck (but it’s not). The pheasant’s interpretation matches the culinary themes of the other six birds in the song, but the golden sparrow was a common cage bird in the 18th century. The song’s staccato melody suggests variation. Themes but tunes were added more than a century after the words. Read more: What is the gift of julieta madrigal GO VAP and Swans A-Swimming—On the topic of food before the song turns to dance, provide some exercise after all the fancy parties and chores that might have otherwise been overlooked. ‘partridge’ is Spruce Grouse, as all geese, swans, pigeons and golden sparrows have departed for the more southern winter areas. The good news is that this year there are Pine and Evening Grosbeaks in the vicinity, as well as both species of redpoll. The E-bird (map below) shows that I’m well positioned (white star) to see numbers of Evening Grosbeaks, a bird I’ve only seen occasionally in the past 50 years.Grosbeak Evening Sights October-December 2018 (from e-bird) Counting 5 golden rings, there are 28 birds in the Twelve Days of Christmas but I would be lucky to see even 28 birds on a day in the winter woods here, where temperatures will be below freezing — and sometimes below — for the next four months. That won’t stop 75 or more people from gathering at Algonquin Park for the Christmas Bird Festival (CBC) on December 29, where they will likely document less than 28 species. [4] in a hard day’s work on walkers, skis and snowshoes. This will be the 45th CBC in a row for Algonquin Park and the 118th CBC since Frank Chapman began counting in 1900. Chapman, however, is a conservationist who sees great value in viewing rather than hunting. gamebird. That first CBC involved just 27 birdwatchers at 25 locations from Toronto, Ontario, to Pacific Grove, California, laying the groundwork for what we now call citizen science.French Hens (Houdans) ORIGIN Footnote Read more: L&P: What is it? | Top Q&A