why so many birds in 12 days of christmas

The Twelve Days of Christmas is an old English carol that tells the story of a lover giving his beloved gifts over the course of twelve days. The gifts are symbolic and represent the different stages of a relationship. The birds in the carol are believed to symbolize the various emotions of the lover, with the partridge representing love, the doves representing peace, and the swans representing beauty. The number twelve is a recurring theme in the carol and is believed to represent the twelve months of the year or the twelve apostles.