After all the allusory references, subtleties and dubiety of our first four days, the fifth – in spite of what some may have us believe – is entirely straightforward: the ‘five gold rings’ in question refer to nothing more or less than five rings, made of gold.
Such absolute unambiguity may be traced to the source of all our inspiration for this series of articles – the original Twelve Days of Christmas song book, Mirth Without Mischief. The original content of the book has the other ‘days’ enumerated along with an illustration of the relevant gift – doves, geese, dancing girls, maids-a-milking and so on. For the fifth day, as if for the avoidance of any doubt, there is a picture of five rings (obviously, we have to defer to the text to determine the material from which they are made, rather than high-definition colour imaging or optical emission spectrometry, both of which were somewhat lacking in the mid 18th century).
This enables us to categorically discount later misinterpretations of the words, which have been mooted to bear some relevance to the ornithological theme of the first seven gifts, as distinct from said rings which stand alone as inanimate objects. Such speculation includes the very recent assertion made along those lines by An Astrophysicist, of all people, who may as well have been an astrologer for all the scientific gravitas the purported revelation about pheasants brought to the ‘debate’ (of which there is no such thing, of course).
Anyway, of far more relevance to the actual gift as mentioned in the song (and not pheasants, at all) is another fast-approaching development in our own back yard. From a point very early in the forthcoming new year, we shall be able to not only provide the finest array of antiques known to mankind but – in addition – a similarly dazzling collection of high-end jewellery. This will be sold both physically from a new store under our own roof and online via our existing website, by the very fine gentlemen of Hodge & Ballard who will be adding The Pantiles Arcade to their list of trading locations.
As you’re here, why not take advantage of our Christmas Sale – select anything you want on the entire store, and use the code TWELVEDAYS in the shopping cart to get 12% off the marked price – the promotion runs until January 6th, so take your time and browse through the very many items we have listed.