5th Day of Christmas Haiku, Five Golden Rings

Circle of promise

Written in gold, forever.

Five rings mugger’s luck.

I hope you will enjoy the 12 Days of Christmas haiku; there will be published one each day starting on Christmas Day. Subscribe to my newsletter to never miss a blog post.

In previous versions of “12 Days of Christmas” five golden rings have been hares running or goldie rings.

These golden rings seem a bit out of place mentions in the middle of a list of birds (partridge, doves, hens, calling birds, geese, swans), isn’t it?

That’s because they might actually refer to the golded rings around the neck of the Golden Pheasant.

Some scholars suggest that the golden rings are actually goldspinks, a 1700’s name for another bird, the European Goldfinch.

There is a Greek legend that might played some influence here. It speaks of Jason and the Argonauts, his crew of men, who went in the quest for the Golden Fleece as ordered by kind Pelias in order to place Jason legally on the throne of Thessaly.

“To take my throne, which you shall, you must go on a quest to find the Golden Fleece.”

From their quest they also brought golden birds, Phasianos ornis in Greek, bird of the river Phasis (Φασιανὸς ὂρνις), the “ring-necked pheasant. But being just introduced in the country they were quite scares so eating them was a luxury of the very rich.

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12 Days of Christmas images available freely on 3dinosaurs.com

I hope you enjoyed my haiku. Let me know your thoughts in comment below.

2 Replies to “5th Day of Christmas Haiku, Five Golden Rings”

I own an ancient necklace that includes five golden rings in fact the whole necklace is green or electrum gold. So I’m here to say that the pheasant thing about the five
gold rings is actually not true and I will prove all the scholars wrong one day. I do have it in my possession as several people in my town have witnessed.