Saturday, December 14, 2013

F-i-i-i-ve Golden R-i-i-i-ngs



Means pheasants. Says Olga Khazan at the Atlantic linked by Insty.

After all, the days of Christmas are all birds up to day eight where they peter out to regular women toiling and lords and ladies dancing and jumping around all over the place to music well-appointed with wind instruments and with emphasis on percussion.

And this whole time I was taking it at face value, five gold rings that you put on your fingers. That's a lot of rings and it means the person really does love you a lot.

But these pheasants are outstanding and I wouldn't mind having these at all if the city would allow it. Regular pheasants are  already outstanding but these pheasants are super outstanding, just look at their colors. They're better than parrots.



Plus they're not squawking all the time, repeating your favorite most damaging phrases.  Man, these would be great Christmas presents. These are good as peacocks any day. Plus they can decorate your hats and you can eat them.





Olga say also the lyrics are "colly birds" not "calling birds" and that changes everything. Colly means black, soot black. Like blackbirds. Olga says that was a joke, twenty-four black birds in a pie shell so that when it is cut open the birds come flying out. Ha ha ha. Good one. There must have been a lot of birds around in Medieval days of yore.

Here's what twenty-four blackbirds baked in a pie looks like, I drew this for you:



11 comments:

Mumpsimus said...

Thank you for mondegreen. What a great word.

Mumpsimus said...

Here's the wiki for mondegreen.

rhhardin said...

Poulenc did a commissioned music piece for a banquet, including one with wind instruments for the cheese course.

rhhardin said...

Intermède champêtre

virgil xenophon said...

Chip my man, those aren't your run-of-the-mill blackbirds, those are RED WING Blackbirds. NO ONE eats those! Shame on you! :)

rhhardin said...

1
Among twenty snowy mountains
the only moving thing
was the pieman coming.

2
I was of three minds,
like Simple Simon
looking at three pies.

...

Victor Contoski ``Simple Simon in American Literature''

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Pheasants are not quiet. They can be just as noisy as parrots and roosters (not as bad as peacocks). And it is males who have the great colors and males who make all the noise.

virgil xenophon said...

Have a GREAT pheasant hunting story. When I was very young, my Dad, in an attempt to "bond" with me much at my Mothers urging (he was a college Basketball & tennis coach and away from home a lot, e.g., practice, away games, etc.) took me pheasant hunting with some others on the faculty. The pheasant he shot was so beautiful to my young eyes that I held it cradled in my lap all the way on the ride back home. Then , that evening, when it was served as dinner at my grandparents house I carried on so much about the sin of eating such a beautiful bird that my parents/grandparents gave up and took it off the table and cooked a substitute meal........Today as an adult I simply LUV smoked pheasant, lol.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

they can decorate your hats and you can eat them.

Back in the day, when I went pheasant hunting and still cared enough to decorate for Christmas.

We would shoot the pheasants and skin them. They weren't worth plucking and there is not really much body fat under the skin to warrant all that work. I would then take the most beautiful feathers and glue them on Styrofoam eggs. Starting from the bottom or narrow end in overlapping rows all the way to the top. Glue on a decorative filigree finial with a little golden eyelet. String with gold thread and use them on the tree as ornaments. They were very lovely. Ring Neck Pheasants mostly. Pretty colors and if we were lucky enough to shoot a Golden Pheasant .....bonus!!! I still have the ornaments.

The pheasants we wrapped in bacon and baked.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Also. Pheasant breast quickly sauteed and covered in a cherry brandy sauce is rather nice too. I had also used the legs, which are stringy and tough to braise, de-bone and make pot pies. Not quite like the blackbird pie as depicted, but similar...no feathers :-)

virgil xenophon said...

@ricpic/

Well, I've long had the spoiled brat bit nailed, but my bank account is still waitin' for the plutocrat ship to arrive..