The Twelve days of Christmas

The Twelve days of Christmas
A photo play written by Witch Guernsey Gwen
and performed by the Guernsey Pouques

Introduction
The Guernsey pouques are like naughty pixies. Each Channel Island
has its own pouques and witch. The pouques are shape shifters and
can change into animals. You can recognise a pouque animal as it is
green and orange. They are delighted to perform for you today.
Pouques never tell humans their real name and if you ask them they
will say that they are called P’tite Jeanne or P’tit Jean.
The witches are called:
Alderney Annie
Herm Hattie
Guernsey Gill
Guernsey Gwen
Jersey Lillie
Sark Sallie

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
A partridge in a pear tree
P’tit Jean was the first pouque to perform and became the partridge in the pear tree. The
pouques struggled to find a tree with fruit on in the middle of winter so they cellotaped
some pears to a random tree in a field that still had leaves on.
They then took a photo.
Unfortunately, the local farmer caught them trespassing and liked the idea of partridge pie.
P’tit Jean was lucky to escape. The pouques had to carefully remove the lead shot from his
bum.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Two turtle doves……
P’tites Jeannes made themselves into two turtle doves. P’tit Jean turned himself back into a
partridge and held a pear in his beak to represent the tree. He told the others he was not
going back to the farmer’s field.
The two turtle doves sat on the branch of a tree in the garden. They were horrified when a
sparrowhawk screeched down and tried to grab them for his tea.
Both turtle doves escaped, one having only sacrificed a few feathers, and the other went to
get first aid.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Three French hens…….
The young pouques decided to do this one and gave a rendition of La Marseillaise (the
French National Anthem), at the same time. One of them even managed to produce an egg
for tea. The other two failed to do this as they had accidentally turned themselves into
cockerels.
They were out in the garden posing for a photo and felt confident that they wouldn’t have a
problem since there are no foxes on Guernsey. However, they didn’t realise that they had a
garden visitor. A large dog grabbed one of the hens and scuttled off with it. The other
pouques chased after the dog, throwing pears at it until it dropped a rather dishevelled hen,
who, feeling traumatised, went home.
The turtle dove and partridge watched from inside the bunker, confirming to themselves
that this was a good place to be.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Four colley birds…..
The Sark pouques made themselves into blackbirds. The word colley is a northern word to
mean coal.
The four colley birds took their place on a tree branch and posed for the camera. The
neighbour’s cat had other ideas. Three of the birds just managed to escape. The others
threw eggs at the cat until it dropped the fourth bird. Traumatised, he went to sit down.
The French hens, turtle dove and partridge watched from inside their bunker, remembering
why they weren’t outside.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Five gold rings…..
Guernsey Gwen donated her gold hula hoops for P’tite Jeanne and P’tite Jean to act out this
one. They organised a spontaneous hula hooping competition. Herm Hattie had very agile
hips and won. The others thought that it was not a fair competition as Hattie regularly
attends the local witches’ gymnastics club.
The three colley birds, two French hens, one turtle dove and partridge all had a go a hula
hooping as well.
The bunker is getting a bit crowded and is full of bird poop.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Six geese a-laying……
The Alderney pouques performed this one. Quite nervous at being outside, they didn’t have
a choice as the bunker was now full of other birds.
Alderney Annie witch kept watch. Unfortunately, she got distracted by posting selfies on her
twitter account and didn't notice the approaching humans keen to choose their Christmas
dinner. The chosen goose did manage to make a hole in the sack and escape before it was
bundled in the car.
The other five geese demanded to be let into the bunker, which was now rather smelly. The
sixth goose was too traumatised to carry on.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Seven swans a-swimming…….
The fairy folk decided to act this scene out on St Saviour’s reservoir.
The five geese, three colley birds, two French hens, a turtle dove and the partridge
nervously flew to the reservoir to have a look. They were accompanied by Sark Sallie on her
broomstick and felt a little safer travelling in a group.
The green swans attracted a lot of human attention. The environmental health humans put
out an island wide alert not to drink water from the tap and came to take some samples,
concerned that the green swans might be covered in poisonous algae.
The swans made a hasty exit when one of the human scientists tried to catch them in order
to analyse them. The geese, blackbirds, hens, turtle dove and partridge didn't hang around
either.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Eight maids a-milking……..
This scene took place the Guernsey Dairy. The fairy folk found some cows heading towards
the milking parlour and stopped them to ask them to pose.
The cows obliged.
One of the P’tites Jeannes struggled get any milk and found out why when the angry bull
whose “udder” she was pulling snorted angrily and ran towards them all.
The fairy folk scarpered but managed to get three pails of fresh creamy Guernsey milk to
take back with them to the bunker.

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Nine ladies dancing………
The fairy folk were quite exhausted by now having escaped a famer, a sparrowhawk, a dog,
a cat, hungry humans, scientists, and a bull.
They were lucky as it was the final day of the World dance championships and they
managed to persuade the sugar plum fairy troop to pose for a photo at the Princess Royal
Theatre.
The birds joined them in the audience. All the fairy folk watching were given a fresh glass of
creamy Guernsey milk.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the performance went smoothly but it took quite a
while for them to clear up the the split milk, bird poop, broken eggs, and squashed pears.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Ten lords a-leaping……….
P’tite Jeanne whatsapped her Aunty, Joan the Wad, Queen of the Cornish piskies, asking if
she knew any Lords.
She contacted the English Faerie who happened to be in London at the houses of
Parliament. The faerie wandered around to try and find some Lords. She came across ten of
them playing Christmas games in one of the chambers. They weren’t social distancing.
She overheard one of them saying that it wasn't a party. It was a business meeting.
Anyway, the English faerie sent the pouques a photo for this scene.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Eleven pipers piping………..
P’tit Jean called Ghillie Dhu, up in Scotland, and asked if he could find some pipers for this
scene. He found a troop making a recording for Hogmanay. COVID 19 meant that live
celebrations have been cancelled.
Ghillie Dhu sent through the film, and everyone danced as the piper played the Gay Gordon.
They did their best amongst the slippery bird poo, broken eggs, pulverised pears, and awful
sweaty smell in the bunker.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Twelve drummers drumming
Sark Sallie had a really good idea for this scene. She found the photo that they took when
everyone was beating a drum for the NHS earlier on in the year at the Interceltique
petitgens fairy folk conference.
Everyone looked back at that photo and remembered what it was like in lockdown. They
were thankful that they had all been triple jabbed so they wouldn't get seriously ill with the
latest version of the fairy folk virus PV19 (Pouque virus 19)
Phew, 2021 is nearly over. What a year it has been. The fairy folk across the world have been
working as hard as ever to protect their humans from the nano invader COVID-19. They all
hope that next year would be better.
The END

www.pouques.gg @guernseypouque