The Twelve Days of Christmas (song) the Faroe Islands, there is a comparable counting Christmas song. The gifts include: one feather, two geese, three sides of meat, four sheep, five cows, six oxen, seven dishes, eight ponies, nine banners, ten barrels, eleven goats, twelve men, thirteen hides, fourteen rounds of cheese and fifteen deer. These were illustrated in 1994 by local cartoonist Óli Petersen (born 1936) on a series of two stamps issued by the Faroese Philatelic Office. "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
The Twelve Days of Christmas (song) are given, one for each day of the year besides Christmas.) An anonymous "antiquarian", writing in 1867, speculated that "pear-tree" is a corruption of French "perdrix" (partridge), and "colley" a corruption of French "collet" (ruff, hence "we at once have a bird with a ruff, "i.e.", the ruff-pigeon"). Cecil Sharp, writing in 1916, observed that "from the constancy in English, French, and Languedoc versions of the 'merry little partridge,' I suspect that 'pear-tree' is really "perdrix" (Old French "pertriz") carried into England"; and "juniper tree" in some English versions may have been "joli perdrix," [pretty partridge]. Sharp also suggests the