Faroese Philatelic Office. Sweden In Blekinge and Småland, southern Sweden, a similar song was also sung. It featured one hen, two barley seeds, three grey geese, four pounds of pork, six flayed sheep, a sow with six pigs, seven åtting grain, eight grey foals with golden saddles, nine newly born cows, ten pairs of oxen, eleven clocks, and finally twelve churches, each with twelve altars, each with twelve priests, each with twelve capes, each with twelve coin-purses, each with twelve daler inside. France "Les Douze Mois" ("The Twelve Months") (also known as "La Perdriole"—"The Partridge") is another similar cumulative verse from France that has been likened to The Twelve Days of Christmas. Its final verse, as published in de Coussemaker, Chants Populaires des Flamands de France (1856), runs as follows: According to de Coussemaker, the song was recorded "in the part of [French] Flanders that borders on the Pas de Calais". Another similar folksong, "Les Dons de l'An", was recorded in the Cambresis region of France. Its final verse, as published in 1864, runs: History and meaning Origins The exact origins and the meaning of the song are unknown, but it is highly probable that it originated from a children's memory and forfeit game. The twelve days in the song are the twelve days starting with Christmas Day to the day before Epiphany (5 January). Twelfth Night is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of January 5th, the day before Epiphany, which traditionally marks the end of Christmas celebrations". The best known English version was first printed in Mirth without Mischief, a children's book published in London around 1780. The work was heavily illustrated with woodcuts, attributed in one source to Thomas Bewick. In the northern counties of England, the song was often called the "Ten Days of Christmas", as there were only ten gifts. It was also known in Somerset, Dorset, and elsewhere in England. The kinds of gifts vary in a number of the versions, some of them becoming alliterative tongue-twisters. "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was also widely popular in the United States and Canada. It is mentioned in the section on "Chain Songs" in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (Indiana University Studies, Vol. 5, 1935), p. 416. There is evidence pointing to the North of England, specifically the area around Newcastle upon Tyne, as the origin of the carol. Husk, in the 1864