Day #5 is as unsettling, possibly more so, than the Day #4 celebration of Herod's infant death knell. The fifth day of Christmas is a celebration (if that's what it can be called) commemorating the brutal, hideously horrifying murder of the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket.
On December 29, 1170, four knights attacked Becket in Canterbury Cathedral after a lot of pompous bullshit about pretending to haul the archbishop back to King Henry II to explain himself for upholding the laws of the church. According to an eye witness, aptly named Grimm, the knights sliced off several top portions of Becket's head until his brains were displayed, then stomped on his neck as he lay prone on the floor, ensuring that his gray matter would spill onto the cathedral floor.
Oh, joy! Another happy occasion to celebrate. Huzzah!
Two hundred years later a guy named Chaucer wrote about pilgrims on their way to Canterbury because, apparently after the gruesome murder, Becket was canonized and the king said, "Oh, my bad!" and the murderous knights fled to Scotland ... or some other semi-sympathetic place. In a cruel, or perhaps cool, twist of fate, Chaucer never completed writing his tales about the famous shrine, cut short (pardon the pun) by death, much like his muse, Becket.
Happy, happy day, everyone. Happy Fifth Day of Christmas to us all!
