‘Three stands for three patriarchs, &c.’[4]
‘Four stands for the four columns which support the world, &c.’[5]
‘Five stands for the five wounds of Jesus Christ.’[6]
‘Six stands for the six cocks which crowed in Galilee.’[7]
‘Seven are the seven tapers that burnt in Jerusalem.’ (‘Cantorno’ for cantarono, a vulgar transposition, like ‘hunderd,’ and ‘childern,’ in English; ‘ardorno’ similarly, instead of ‘arderono,’ though ‘arsero’ would be the correct form.)[8]
‘Eight’ stands for the octave of Christ. (Probably in allusion to the ‘octave,’ or eight days’ festival, of Christmas.)[9]
‘Nine’ stands for the nine quires of angels.[10]
‘Ten’ stands for the ten years of Christ. (What ‘ten years’ it is not easy to see.)[11]
‘Eleven’ stands for the crowning with thorns. (St. Bridget or Sœur Emmerich, in their minute meditations or ‘Revelations’ on the Passion, have fixed a number for the thorns in our Lord’s crown, but I do not remember what they make it; there may be a tradition that it was eleven.)[12]
‘Twelve’ stands for the Twelve Apostles.[13]