Feathers and festivity

How did the turkey end up on our tables or a partridge in a pear tree? Birds play an interesting part in our festive traditions

- CARLA PASSINO

I sabella Beeton had no doubt. In her 1861 Book of Household Management, she noted that ‘a Christmas dinner, with the middle classes of this empire, would scarcely be a Christmas dinner without its turkey’. Since then, however, birds have come to dominate more than just the festive table; from carols to cards, many have become veritable icons of the Christmas season.

ROBIN

With its seasonally appropriate breast, the robin is steeped in Christian folklore. Some stories link the bird’s red colouring to the blood of Jesus: as the robin tried to pick off the crown of thorns, a drop fell and stained its breast. Others say that the robin fanned the flames to keep baby Jesus warm and in so doing it scorched its breast. Either way, “The robin is the ultimate Christmas bird,” according to natural historian Stephen Moss, the author of The Twelve Birds of Christmas and The Robin: A Biography.

The real origin of the bird’s connection with the holiday season is likely to be far more prosaic: it turns up at a time when not much else does. “The fact that midwinter is so dead in other forms of animal life [means that] the ones that are around develop their own folklore, their own specialness,” believes Mark Connelly, professor of Modern British History at the University of Kent and the author of Christmas: A History.