Wikipedia says "The earliest known publications of the words to The Twelve Days of Christmas were an illustrated children's book, Mirth Without Mischief, published in London in 1780" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_(...
This site https://www.birdspot.co.uk/culture/the-birds-of-the-twelve-d... tries hard to link them all to birds but it's a far stretch, considering it falls apart at "Five Gold Rings". "However, Mirth and Mischief includes an illustration that clearly depicts the rings as jewelry." Archive.org even has a scan of the book: https://archive.org/details/mirth_without_mischief/page/n7/m...
Wikipedia says "The earliest known publications of the words to The Twelve Days of Christmas were an illustrated children's book, Mirth Without Mischief, published in London in 1780" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_(...
This site https://www.birdspot.co.uk/culture/the-birds-of-the-twelve-d... tries hard to link them all to birds but it's a far stretch, considering it falls apart at "Five Gold Rings". "However, Mirth and Mischief includes an illustration that clearly depicts the rings as jewelry." Archive.org even has a scan of the book: https://archive.org/details/mirth_without_mischief/page/n7/m...