"Chant well, Killore. Iolic, what shall I sing?—The most beautiful thing thou knowest."
And it enumerates, "One silver ring to Mary, two silver rings, three queens in a palace, four acolytes, five black cows, six brothers and six sisters, seven days and seven moons, eight beaters of the air, nine armed sons, ten ships on the shore, eleven sows, twelve small swords." This combination of objects with numbers from one to twelve agrees most closely with the enumeration of the game of Twelve Days.
The longer version of the Breton chant was interpreted by its editor as a chant of instruction, and he claimed for it a Druidical origin. It begins:—
Beautiful child of the Druid, answer me right well.
—What would'st thou that I should sing?—
Sing to me the series of number one, that I may learn it this very day.
—There is no series for one, for One is Necessity alone, the father of death, there is nothing before and nothing after.
And we read of two as oxen yoked to a cart; of three as the beginning, the middle, and the end of the world for man and for the oak; also of the three kingdoms of Merlin; of four as the stones of Merlin for sharpening the swords of the brave; of five as the terrestrial zones, the divisions of time, the rocks on one sister (sic); of six as babes of wax quickened into life through the power of the moon; of seven as the suns, the moons, and the planets, including La Poule (i.e. the constellation) of Charles's Wain; of eight as the winds that blow, eight fires with the great fire lighted in the month of May on the War Mountain; of nine as little white hands near the tower of Lezarmeur, and as maidens who groan; of nine also as maidens who dance with flowers in their hair and in white robes around the well by the light of the moon; 'the wild sow and her young at the entrance to their lair, are snorting and snarling, snarling and snorting; little one, little one, hurry to the apple-tree, the wild boar will instruct you'; of ten as the enemy's boats on the way from Nantes, 'woe to you, woe to you, men of Vannes'; of eleven as priests 'coming from Vannes with broken swords and blood-stained garments, and crutches of hazel-wood, of three hundred only these eleven ones are left'; of twelve as months and signs, 'Sagittarius, the one before the last, lets fly his pointed arrow. The twelve signs are at war. The black cow with a white star on her forehead rushes from the forest (des despouillés) pierced by a pointed arrow, her blood flows, she bellows with raised head. The trumpet sounds, fire and thunder, rain and wind. No more, no more, there is no further series.' (H. V., p. 1.)
The contents of this chant in several particulars agree with the shorter one. Seven stands for days, eight for winds, and ten for boats.
A similar chant comes from Spain, which gives the answers with a curious variation. For in this case most of the numbers are explained as one less of one kind and one more of another. Thus one stands for the Wheel of Fortune; two for one clock and bell; three for the handle of a mortar (? la mano del almiles); four for three basins and one dish; five for three jars of red wine and two of white (or for the wounds of St. Francis); six for the loves you hold (amores que teneis); seven for six cassocks and a cape; eight for seven butchers and one sheep; nine for eight hounds and one hare; ten for the toes; eleven for ten horsemen and one leader (breva, ? acorn); twelve are probably pigs.
Exactly as in the other chants the numbers are set in question and answer, the answer being in cumulative form:—
Quién me dirá que no es una?—
La rued de la fortuna.
(Ma., p. 68.)
"Who will tell me what is one?—One is the Wheel of Fortune," and so forth.