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n If you imagine that a wild boar is anything likenyour average farmyard porker, you might like to revise your opinions. A malenboar may look like a grunting piggly-wiggly, but standing at about three feetnat the shoulder, weighing in at about 150 lbs, it is a wedge of pure muscle,ncovered in thick bristles, with four tusks set into a skull of solid bone,nwhich it carries on shoulders of tremendous strength. It is a bad-tempered,nvicious hulk of spite and fury.
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| Wild Boar |
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nMale boars are normally solitary creatures and,nlike any wild animal, it will habitually avoid contact with humans but ifncornered or surprised it will stand its ground. Sometimes it will feint andnbreak off its charge but sometimes it will carry through and attack. It willnhurl itself forward, with foaming jaws and head held low and when it makesncontact it will suddenly arch its head upwards, its curved tusks ripping intonanything they encounter.
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| Boar’s Head with tusks |
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nThe tusks are crescent shaped, about six to eightninches long and by wearing against each other have razor sharp edges. Becausenof the height of the boar, the most common area of goring a man is in the uppernthighs and lower trunk, and the weight and momentum of a charge can easily killna man. Just to give you some idea of their savagery, it is said that hungryntigers will avoid attacking an adult male boar; if tigers are afraid of them, Insuggest that you should be too.
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| Boar Hunting |
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nWe know from inscriptions on their altars thatnthe Romans in Britain hunted wild boar. William I passed a forest law in 1087nthat anyone found guilty of killing a stag, a roebuck or a wild boar shouldnhave his eyes put out. Henry I loved hunting boar, which he called ‘a veriendangerous exercise’, and a boar was the badge of Edward III. When James Invisited Hoghton Tower in 1617, he was more than once served ‘wild boar pye’;n(there is still a Boars Head pub at Hoghton, and a very good one it is,ntoo).
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| More Boar |
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nAn entry in an account book dated 1683 mentions payment made for a wildnswine, indicating that boars were still running wild at that time. Boars werenfinally hunted to extinction in Britain but they have been reintroducednlatterly, with their numbers supplemented by escapees from commercial boarnfarms, and if you know where to look, are reasonably easy to find today.
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| The Boar’s Head |
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nOne ofnthe most ancient of all the ancient Christmas traditions is the feast of thenBoar’s Head. The Scandinavians revered boars and they brought their customs tonBritain as they settled in the north. nBoars were sacred to the fertility god Freyr and were an integral partnof the old Yule festivities. In the Norse myths, the sun is Freyr riding hisngolden boar, Gullinbursti, across the skies. Eating pork was a common part ofntheir diet and especial regard was given to the meat of the wild boars, notnleast because of the danger and prestige involved in hunting the formidablenbeasts.
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| German Boar Spear |
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nBoars were hunted by flushing them out with dogs, called raches ornratchet-hounds, and facing them down with boar-spears, which were broad-headednlances that had a cross-bar behind the head, to prevent the body of the boarnfrom running down the length of the shaft and reaching the man at the othernend, such was the force of the charge of the creature. If the common man begannhis Christmas fare with plum porridge, the Lord of the Manor began his dinnernwith the ceremony of the Boar’s Head.
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| Boar’s skull |
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nAmidst great pomp, the Head with an applenin its mouth would be brought into the Hall on a gold or silver platter,naccompanied by servants and members of the household and very often by thenhunter who had killed the boar. Minstrels played, and one of the oldestnChristmas carols is the Boar’s Head Carol, the most widespread versionnof which dates from Wynkyn de Worde’s printed book Christmasse Carollesnof 1521.
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| The Boar’s Head Carol |
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nThe custom the Boar’s Head continues at Queen’s College, Oxford, wherenit has been performed since the fourteenth century. The Head is borne in bynfour men, preceded by a solo singer who sings the verses and followed by thenchoir, who sing the chorus, and the platter is brought to the table of thenProvost, who serves slices first to the High Table and then to the rest of thentables.
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| The Lord Boar |
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nThe apple (or sometimes orange or lemon) in the mouth of the Head wasnstuck with a sprig of rosemary, which was once a popular Christmas decoration,nsymbolising remembrance (Shakespeare refers to it in Hamlet, wherenOphelia says, “There’s Rosemary for you, that’s for remembrance; pray you,nlove, remember.”). It was used in funeral wreathes but was also used innmarriage celebrations (Anne of Cleves wore sprigs of rosemary in her hair atnher marriage to Henry VIII). The name of the herb has connotations with Mary,nChrist’s mother, one of who’s symbols was the Rose, although the name comesnfrom rosmarinus – ‘dew of the sea’ – and there is a legend that thenrosemary bush hid the Holy Family from Herod’s soldiers in their Flight intonEgypt. Rosemary was included in Christmas garlands, together with holly, ivy,nbay laurel and mistletoe.
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| Thomas Bewick – Wild Boar |
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nThe first verse and the chorus are:
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n Solo: Thenboar’s head in hand bear Innn
nnBedecked with bays and rosemarynnn
nnI pray you, my masters, be merrynnn
nnQuot estis in convivio (So many as are in the feast)n
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nnChorus: Caput apri defero, Reddens laudes dominonnn
nn(The boar’s head I bring, giving praises to God)n
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nThere are other versions of this carol but allnfollow roughly the same form.
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| Another version of the Boar’s Head Carol |
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nThere is a legend at Oxford that an undergraduate,nCopcot, was walking in the woods of Shotover when he surprised a boar. The boarncharged Copcot, who had only his copy of Aristotle to protect himself, so henthrust the book into the boar’s mouth with the words ‘Græcum est’n(roughly, ‘It’s all Greek to me’) and the animal choked to death on thenindigestible tome. Copcot beheaded the dead beast to retrieve his book andncarried both back to his college, where the head was served up at a feast and antradition was born.
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