THE BOARS HEAD OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 51 



Gifford and William Twety, who lived in the reign of Edward II., 

 composed a book on the craft of hunting, part in verse and part in 

 prose, and among the beasts mentioned in those hunted we find 



" To venery I cast me fyrst to go : 

 Of whiche foure beasts there be ; that is to say, 

 The hare, the herte, the wulfhe the wild boor also." 



In the time of Charles I. they had evidently been long extinct, for 

 he endeavored to reintroduce them, and was at considerable ex- 

 pense in order to procure a wild boar and his mate from Germany. 

 These are said to have been turned into the New Forest, where 

 they propagated greatly. The breed commonly called " forest pigs," 

 have many of the characteristics of the wild boar. 



Throughout the whole of England, the boar's head was formerly 

 a standard Christmas dish, served with many ceremonies, and usher- 

 ed in by an ancient chorus chanted by all present, the words of which 

 are preserved in " Ritson's Ancient Song : 



" The bore's heed in hand bring I, 

 With ' garlands" gay and rosemary, 

 I pray you all synge merily, 

 Qui estis in convivio. 



The bore's heed, I understande, 

 Is the " chefe" servyce in the lande 

 Loke where ever it be foimde, 

 Servite cum cantico. 



Be gladde, lordes, bothe more and lasse, 

 For this hath ordeyned our stewarde, 

 To chere you all this Christmasse, 

 The bore's heed with mustarde.' 



Queen Margaret, wife of James IV. of Scotland, " at the first 

 course of her wedding dinner," was served with a " wyld bore's 

 head gylt within a fayr platter." 



King Henry II. himself bore this ancient dish into the hall, attend- 

 ed with trumpeters and great ceremony, when his son was crowned. 



The boar's head is to the present day placed upon the table of the 

 Queen's College, Oxford, on Christmas day, but now it is neatly 

 carved in wood instead of being the actual head of the animal. 

 This ceremony is said to have originated in a tabender belonging to 

 that college having slain a wild boar on Christmas-day, which had 

 long infested the neighborhood of Oxford. 



The abbot of St. Germain, in Yorkshire, was bound to send 

 yearly a present of a boar's head to the hangman, which a monk was 

 obliged to carry on his own. This rent was paid yearly, at the feast 

 of St. Vincent, the patron of the Benedictines, and on that day the 

 executioner took precedency il the procession of monks. 



