Twelfth Night: a day for literary epiphanies

The great Christian feast to mark the coming of the Magi has made numerous, distinctly secular, appearances in literature

So when is Twelfth Night? The Epiphany – the Christian feast to mark the visit of the three kings (or Magi) to the baby Jesus – is 6 January. If you count from Christmas Day, the 12th night is 5 January – the eve of the Epiphany. But some say you should count the 12 days after Christmas, which takes you to the 6th. People treat either the 5th or 6th as the day to celebrate, and there are equal claims that each is Twelfth Night, so we’ll throw them all in together.

It’s a significant day in many countries, particularly Catholic ones, where Twelfth Night parties and celebrations are commonplace and usually involve the selection of a king, and sometimes a queen and other characters. In France, for example, the galette des rois (“cake of kings”) has a token baked into it; patisseries sell it along with a gold paper crown for the recipient of the token, who becomes the party’s ruler. You may not find these traditions in Britain nowadays – we’ve all gone back to the office by then – but there are a number of Twelfth Night events in literature.

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