The Rural Voice, 1990-12, Page 36ftlerrp Cryristmag
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32 THE RURAL VOICE
BOAR'S HEAD
You will quite often see old English prints of the Christmas meal with a boar's
head gracing the festive banquet table. This association probably dates back to pagan
ties when the Germanic god, Frey, who cared for the fertility of the herds, was
symbolized by a boar. Therefore, at midwinter, a boar would be sacrificed to the god.
This sacrifice was carried over into the Christmas tradition as a non -religious custom.
It was an important part of the medieval English Christmas feast. It took more than
a week to properly skin, soak, salt, preserve, prepare, and cook — not to mention the
problems of hunting it down in the first place, since the wild boar was a very
dangerous animal. The
boar's head was brought into
the banquet in a procession
of cooks, huntsmen, and
servants, all elaborately
dressed to provide as much
spectacle as possible. While
bringing it in, they would
sing the "Boar's Head
Carol," which is one of the
earliest English carols,
having appeared in a book
printed in 1521. This custom
started to die out as early as the thirteenth century as the wild boar began to become
extinct in the British Isles. There are still some places that preserve the custom with
a suckling pig.
OLD HOB
Another very rare custom that would be of particular interest to horse lovers is that
of Old Hob. Old Hob is a horse who may have had his origin in pre -Christian
representations of Odin's eight -footed horse. Like the Welsh Mari Llwyd, the
English Old Hob is represented by a horse's head on a pole carried by a man under
a sheet. It was accompanied by groups of waifs who sang Christmas ditties and rang
hand bells for coins. The Old Hob
festivities would begin as early as
All Soul's Day, November 2, and
usually ended by Boxing Day,
December 26.
Mari Llwyd is a Welsh Christmas
fantasy creature that is half -man,
half -animal. It wears a white sheet
on which hang such holiday
ornaments as bells, Christmas balls,
baubles, holly, and tinsel, while a
huge headpiece resembling the
head of a horse covers the upper
torso. Making queer shrill noises,
prancing like a hobby horse,
dancing and darting at the children,
the Mari Llwyd stirs up laughter and mirth as it parades about the countryside. In
former times, the head was actually made from the skull of a horse, wired so that the
jaws could be worked. If someone was bitten by the Mari Llwyd, he or she had to pay
a fine.
There was a similar tradition in northern Germany where the horse was called
Schimmel.