Welcome to h2g2's attempt to decipher the mystery that is the song 'The 12 Days of Christmas'. You've come to the page that is concentrating on the line Two Turtle Doves, and here's what our Researchers came up with when we asked them what on earth this line meant.

• One possible explanation for this line - and surely the most pleasant - is that it's all about love. It could be Cockney Rhyming Slang for 'love', though that's debatable... but whatever the real meaning there's no doubt that the idea of two turtle doves warms the cockles. Imagine the scene... you and your loved one relaxing in front of an open fire¹, billing and cooing to your hearts' content. Everyone say 'Ahhhhhh...'

• We'd like to point out that this is almost definitely nothing to do with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The exploits of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael and their love of pizza isn't the most Christmassy thing in the world, though at their peak in the late '80s the number of Ninja Turtle presents kicking around might have made you think otherwise.

• Turtle doves have rings round their necks, just like turtle-neck tops. For those of you who managed to miss out on the inexorable rise of the turtle-neck phenomenon, you're incredibly lucky: the fact that Lord Snowdon had a white silk turtle-necked 'evening shirt' made in the late '60s, which he wore under a conventional (but needless to say, stylish) dinner jacket, only serves to rub it in. Turtle-necks were often worn with medallions, and the enduring image of Roger Moore as the Saint decked out in turtle-neck finery is one of those things that can wake you up in a cold sweat, even decades later. The fact that your mother-in-law will probably give you a knitted turtle-neck sweater this Christmas gives us a tenuous but highly emotional connection to 'The 12 Days of Christmas'.