The twelve days of Christmas,1 as a festival, have a long history. According to one source, it was first mentioned as a festal tide by the eastern Father, Ephraem Syrus, at the end of the fourth century, and was declared to be such by the western Council of Tours in 567 A.D. The laws of Ethelred (991-1016) ordained it to be a time of peace and concord among Christian men, when all strife must cease — perhaps the beginning of the traditional Christmas truces observed up through World War I.
As a song, Elizabeth Poston reports that an early version dates back to a thirteenth-century manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (B. 14. 39) entitled 'Twelfth Day'. According to Husk, more modern versions were frequently found in the broadsides printed at Newcastle at various periods during the last hundred and fifty years. On one such broadside, it was described as "An Old English Carol," but properly speaking, it is not a carol but a Christmas song.
