One of the interesting things about the site Snopes.com, those
Web sleuths who uphold or debunk strange assertions, is that you
discover some things you didn’t even know were open to question.
Case in point: the classic holiday carol, The Twelve Days of
Christmas. This, of course, is the song that bespeaks the gifts
given by a “true love” between Christmas and Epiphany (Jan. 5).
No way that song could stir up a controversy, right? A coded
catechism According to an urban legend that began in the late
1990s, the song was created by the Catholic Church as a coded
reference to important articles of the Christian faith, says
Snopes. According to this claim, The Twelve Days of Christmas
was written in England during the time (1558-1829) when
Catholics in that country had to step lightly or face
persecution until the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed in
1829. The song was first published in England in 1780. A way
around the law The legend goes that Catholics were prohibited
from any practice of their faith, eithe