“We have judged it best that you should come late” [ENGR]
Editor's note: This may seem like heresy to traditional Sherlockians, who've been celebrating Sherlock Holmes's birthday on January 6th for nearly a century.
Erik Deckers, longtime contributor to the Canonical Couplet on the IHOSE podcast and chief instigator behind the satirical H & W Con, has written to tell us our math hasn't been mathing. Whether or not you choose to believe him, he provides an informative history and some convincing facts.
We'll let Erik tell it himself.
We've been making a terrible mistake about Sherlock Holmes's birthday.
It's widely believed that Holmes's birthday was January 6, 1854, but it's not.
Why? What's so special about that particular date in the first place?
In "His Last Bow," even though he was in disguise as "an Irish-American," Holmes was described as
. . . a tall, gaunt man of sixty, with clear-cut features and a small goatee beard which gave him a general resemblance to the caricatures of Uncle Sam."
Since "His Last Bow" was published in 1914, we, along with most chronologists, can assume Holmes was then born in 1854.
But where did we get January 6th?
Because Christopher Morley says so.
In his article in the January 6, 1933 issue of The Saturday Review of Literature, when Holmes would have turned 79, Morley said:
"I have not looked up the date, but if, as an astrologer has suggested, Sherlock Holmes was most likely born in January, some observance is due. Therefore, if the matter has never been settled, I nominate January 6th (the date of this issue of the Saturday Review) as his birthday…"
Morley further reasoned that because Holmes quotes Shakespeare's Twelfth Night twice — ever — in the canon, it means he was interested in that play because his own birthday was on the twelfth night after Christmas. (Which is a stretch. After all, Holmes mentioned murder at least 72 times in the canon, but that doesn't mean he loved Sweeney Todd.)
In The Sign of the Four, Holmes quips, "All is well that ends well" from Act IV, Scene 4. In "The Empty House," Holmes says, "'Journeys end in lovers meetings,' as the old play says," from Act II, Scene 3.
Except Morley got the date wrong.
And it all has to do with how we count the twelve days of Christmas.
What Are the Twelve Days of Christmas?
The twelve days of Christmas — the time, not the song — was proclaimed by the Council of Tours in 567 to be a "sacred and festive season." As a result, they filled those days with various feasts and observances that are celebrated by the Roman Catholics and Orthodox churches to the east (i.e., the Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, and Oriental Orthodox).
This sacred and festive season is what led to the original song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
Which you just started singing in your head.
TDOC is an English Christmas carol first published in 1780 and is known as a cumulative song. That means, says Wikipedia, "the lyrics take the form of a stanza of at least two lines. In each verse, the text of the first line introduces a new item, and the other line uses the words to begin a list that includes items from all the preceding verses." (Wikipedia)
There have been a number of different melodies associated with the "Hey Jude" of Christmas music, although the one you're singing in your head comes from a 1909 traditional folk melody arranged by English composer Frederic Austin.
Seriously, it's in your head now; you can't escape it.
The original song lyrics from 1780 actually match up with what we sing today with one exception ("three Colly birds"), but they have varied over the last 244 years.
For example, in a manuscript by Cecily Baring-Gould (the great-aunt of William Baring-Gould) from around 1840, she says that a "partridge in a pear tree" was actually "part of a juniper tree." On the fourth and fifth days, my true love gave "four Colley birds" and "a golden ring." There were also "eight hares a-running," "ten lords a-playing," "eleven bears a-baiting," and "twelve bulls a-roaring."
[This is an interesting rabbit trail in itself. William Baring-Gould's father, Sabine Baring-Gould co-authored a book, Songs of the West: Folk Songs of Devon & Cornwall Collected from the Mouths of the People in 1889 in which he credits his aunt, Cecily Baring-Gould, having written the words and music to Twelve Days of Christmas in "about 1840."]
In the 1864 book Household Friends for Every Season, Thomas Hughes lists "a partridge and a pear tree," "three fat hens," "four ducks quacking," and "five hares running."
In 1892, William Bell Scott quoted a "very pretty peacock in a pear tree," "four Corley birds," and "eleven ladies a-louping."
The gifts my true love gave have varied greatly, but we didn't land on the final order until 1909 with Frederic Austin's re-arranging of the original folk melody, and even then, he used the very first set of lyrics we know and. . . love(?) today.
FIVE GOOOOLD RINGS!
Seriously, it'll be in your head all day.
When and What Are the Actual Twelve Days?
The original twelve days of Christmas were filled with liturgical feasts and celebrations observed by the Roman Catholic Church and most Orthodox Churches. Here are several of the different historical observations of the twelve special days.
1 – Dec. 25th – Christmas Day.
2 – Dec. 26th – St. Stephen's Day. Also known as Boxing Day.
3 – Dec. 27th – Feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist. Also known as Wrestling Day.
4 – Dec. 28th – Feast of the Holy Innocents.
5 – Dec. 29th – Memorial of St. Thomas Becket, Bishop and Martyr.
6 – Dec. 30th – Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
7 – Dec. 31st – Feast of Pope St. Sylvester I.
8 – Jan. 1st – Feast of the Circumcision of Christ.
9 – Jan. 2nd – Feasts of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nazianzus.
10 – Jan. 3rd – Memorial of the Holy Name of Jesus.
11 – Jan. 4th – Unknown.
12 – Jan. 5th – Epiphany Eve.
When is Twelfth Night?
Twelfth Night, also known as Epiphany Eve — which is far less exciting than Christmas Eve — marks the coming of the Epiphany, a Christian feast day that marks the visit of the magi, Jesus' baptism, and the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine.
Not all on the same day, of course.
But, depending on which tradition you belonged to — Western Christianity or Eastern Orthodoxy — the date of Twelfth Night was either January 5th or 6th, depending on when the counting began on Christmas Day or the day after.
Except, why would you count the twelve days of Christmas and not include, you know, the Actual Day Of Christmas?
That's just not right. And since Holmes is from the western arm of Christianity, he and his family would have celebrated — or at least sung — the twelve days of Christmas starting on December 25th.
Which means. . .
Holmes's Birthday Is On January 5th, Not the 6th
Here in the West, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, and United Protestant congregations all celebrate Epiphany on January 6th, and they all agree that the Twelfth Day and the Twelfth Night are on the 5th. It's one of the only things they agree on.
And that all means:
1) If Holmes was born on the twelfth day of Christmas, and
2) The twelfth day of Christmas is on January 5th, then
3) Holmes's birthday is on Thursday, January 5th, 1854, the day before Epiphany.
Just think about this for a while, count the actual days, and sing the song over and over again. (It hasn't left your brain anyway.)
Eventually, the numbers will align, the stars will be in their places, and you'll have an. . . um. That is, a sort of, what's that called when something comes to you in a bolt of realization?
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Read Erik's regular column, Laughing Stalk
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