THE CEREMONY OF THE BOAR’S HEAD.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 15, 15 December 1937, Page 17

THE CEREMONY OF THE BOAR’S HEAD.

In Oxford customs die hard, and many of the rites and ceremonies of our forefathers are religiously observed to this very day. So it is with the Boar’s Head ceremony at Queen’s College. Dating back to the beginning of the sixteenth century, it had probably been performed long before that per-, iod, writes Anthony Steven in a London travel journal. Every Christmas day, amid much pomp and dignified revelry, the Boar's Head is carring to the High Table in Dining Hall, while an old carol is sung, beginning thus :

The boar’s head in hand bear I, Bedecked with bays and. rosemary; And 1 pray you, masters, merry be, Qui estis in convivo. Caput Apri defero Reddens laudes Domino.

Although more reasonable theories have been put forward as to how the feast bega.n, much of the most entertaining is the legend that it was started to commemorate a contest on Shotover Hill, just outside Oxford, between a Queen’s scholar and a wild boar. Although unarmed, the nimblewitted young man scored a signal victory over his fierce adversary by thrusting a copy of Aristotle down its throat, remarking as he did so “Graecum est,”