During the festive season, it's impossible to avoid a Christmas ditty or two. Mariah Carey's dulcet tones are etched into our psyche come December 1st, LadBaby's peculiar sausage roll song rises in the charts, and traditional carols including "O Holy Night" and "Jingle Bells" warm up our Christmas cockles.
Steeped in biblical history, 'The 12 Days of Christmas' carol can be heard around the globe each year. Most of us are familiar with the lyrics, as every line details a gift given on each day of Christmas - from turtle doves to a partridge in a pear tree. There's plenty of bird references in the jolly song, but there's one particular lyric hat's left people baffled as it completely changes its meaning.
Earlier this week, Dr. Anna Hughes, who has a PHD in astrophysics and works in quantum computing, shared a bombshell revelation about the carol that's left people in a frenzy.
Taking to Twitter, she wrote: "Learning that "five gooolden riings" is not in fact referring to 5 literal golden rings, but to five ring-necked pheasants, aka more birds".
It's the part of the song that everyone really sings their hearts out to, but it seems as though nobody understood the true meaning behind the lyric, as Anna's claims have left them utterly baffled. While we all had visions of gold jewellery in our heads, it turns out that the gift appears to be yet another bird.
Flocking to the viral Twitter thread to share their shock, one person wrote: "Uh, so are the maids a-milking, ladies dancing, lords a-leaping, pipers piping and drummers drumming somehow birds also?"
Meanwhile, another added: "You cannot be serious. How many birds do I need".
A third wrote: "I read this out loud to my partner and he shouted "No!" as if i had just told him Christmas was canceled [sic] forever".
Others tried to debunk the theory, as one Twitter user mused: "Doesn't seem likely: the first illustration was of five gold rings, I can't find any reference to pheasants with golden neck rings (they are white feathers irl) and ringnecked pheasants were only introduced to England shortly before that first illustration."
Outside of the lyric theory, people are generally puzzled as to why there are so many birds in the song - and there's no solid answer. Birds are historically symbolic in Christian faith, which could explain the connotation, but even the origin of the song itself is disputed - so we're all left guessing.
Another theory proposes that the five golden rings are a Biblical reference to the first five books of the Old Testament, also known as the Pentateuch.
The 12 days of Christmas is the period in Christian theology that marks the period between the birth of Christ and the coming of the Magi, the three wise men.
Although scholars believe that the carol has French origins, it first appeared in the English children's book Mirth With-out Mischief, published in 1780.
The lyrics have changed over the years, only adding to the song's mystery. Either way, it's safe to say that singing 'five gold rings' will never feel the same again.
