Source: William Henry Husk, Songs of the Nativity (London: John Camden Hotten, 1868)
Editor's Note:
In perhaps the ultimate tribute to the Boar's Head, William Henry Husk reproduced all seven Boar's Head Carols of which he had knowledge. The general introduction is reproduced immediately below, and thereupon links to each of these treasures, each with its own notes, together with other versions from other collectors.
Edith Rickert also reproduces seven Boar's Head carols. They largely, but not always, follow Husk, but lack extensive notes. Her general note from page 301:
“The boar's-head carols are interesting as embodying a ceremony surviving from a pagan sacrificial feast. Numerous as are the versions, their general effect is strikingly similar. Two give an account of the killing of the beast, and one drags in Christian symbolism by comparing him to Christ.”
The seven versions reproduced by Rickert include:
Tidings I Bring You For To Tell, p. 256
At The Beginning Of The Meat (Po, po, po, po), p. 257
The Boar's Head In Hand I Bring (Hey, hey, hey, hey), p. 257
The Boar's Head That We Bring Here (In Die Nativitatis or Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell), p. 258
The Boar's Head In Hand Bear I, p. 259
The Boar's Head In Hand Bring I, p. 260 [Separate Rickert Version]
The Boar Is Dead, p. 260
See: Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914, reprint of the edition of 1910).
The Rickert versions are incorporated with the Husk versions below, as are the versions from other collections.
Henry Vizetelly, in Christmas With The Poets (London: David Bogue, 1851), reproduces five Boar's Head carols, with his own introduction to Boar's Head Carols (which bears reading). His five carols are:
1. Tidings I bring you for to tell (citing Wright)
2. The boar's head, that we bring here (from the British Museum)
3. At the beginning of the meat (citing Wright)
4. The boar's head in hand I bring ("Reliquić Antiquć")
5. The boar's head in hand bring I (from Wynkin de Worde)
He has brief notes introducing each carol, plus a final "A Carol Of Hunting," which I include for the sake of completeness.
Husk's Introduction
Carols on Bringing In The Boar's Head
"The head of a wild boar formed, at a very early period in our history, the principal and choicest disk at all great feasts, and especially at Christmas. Why it should have been so highly esteemed we cannot now tell; but possibly the danger encountered in attacking so ferocious an animal as the wild boar, and the consequent importance attaching to it when slain, as a trophy of victory, may have had an influence in raising it to the position it enjoyed.
"The boar's head was brought to table with great ceremony; trumpeters preceded the bearer, sounding, and various other persons attended and formed a procession. Holinshed, in his Chronicle, acquaints us how King Henry II on the occasion of the coronation of his son Henry, as heir apparent, on the 14th June, 1170, himself brought up the boar's head, with trumpets before it. At Queen's College, Oxford, founded in 1340, the custom of bringing in a boar's head, on Christmas Day, with music and a carol (given hereinafter), has been preserved to our own times. At Henry's VI's coronation boar's heads were placed on the table in "castellys of golde and enamell." Margaret, daughter of Henry VII, and wife to James IV of Scotland, "at the furst course" of her wedding dinner, "was served of a wyld borres hed gylt, within a fayr platter."
"In the household accounts of King Henry VIII we find an entry of 24th November, 1529, of a payment to a servant of the Lord Chamberlain of 40s "in rewarde for bringing a wylde bore unto the king," and on the last day of December in the same year, a like sum of 40s was paid to one of the Lord Chamberlain's servants for a similar service. A servant of "Maister Tresorer" received 4s 8d on 18th December, 1531, "for bringing a wylde bore's head to the king."
"The custom continued throughout the reign of Elizabeth, — during which, on Christmas Day, in the Inner Temple, "a fair and large boar's head" was served "upon a silver platter with minstrelsy;" — and into the reigns of her immediate successors, for Aubrey, in a manuscript, dated 1678, says: "Before the last civil wars, in gentlemen's houses at Christmas, the first diet that was brought to table was a boar's head with a lemon in his mouth.
"The following is a collection of the principal, if not the only, Boar's head carols now extant: —
1. The Boar His Head In Hand I Bring (Husk, 1868; he states that this the earliest known carol of the kind); Compare: The boris hede in hond I bryng (Thomas Wright, 1841)
2. Tidings I Bring You For To Tell (Husk, 1868); compare Tydynges I Bryng 3ow For To Tell (Thomas Wright, 1847)
3. At The Beginning Of The Meat (Husk, 1868; compare: At The Begynnyng Of The Mete (Thomas Wright, 1847)
4. The Boar's Head In Hand Bring I (Husk, 1868; Early Version)
5. The Boar’s Head In Hand Bring I (Also: The Boar's Head In Hand I Bear I. Husk, 1868; Later Version.) This is the only version that Husk provides music. Musical settings are also found in Shaw and Dearmer, The English Carol Book, Second Series, #36, and Rimbault, Ancient Songs and Carols. This is version, according to Husk (1868), annually sung on Christmas Day at Queen's College, Oxford, where the custom of bringing the boar's head to table on that day has been uninterruptedly maintained. As nearly as I can ascertain, the "Boar's Head Gaudy" is still celebrated at the College on a Saturday, four to ten days prior to Christmas for selected "Old Members" of the College.
Compare:
- The Bores Heed In Hand Bring I (Sandys, 1833)
- The bores heed in hande bring I - Version 2 (Middle English from Thomas Wright, 1841)
- The bores heed in hande bring I (Blackletter) (Reed, 1932)
- The Boar's Head In Hand Bear I (Thomas Wright, 1841)
6. The Boar's Head, That We Bring Here (Husk, 1868); compare The Borys Hede That We Bryng Here (Sandys, 1833) and The borys hede that we bryng here (Thomas Wright, 1841). This is also known as The Exeter Boar's Head Carol, with music by Richard Smert (15th century). I am attempting to obtain an older copy of Ritson (it is not in the Hazlitt edition of 1877); the editors of The New Oxford Book of Carols have the music (#37, pp. 106-108). Music is also found in Musica Britannica, Vol. IV, Medieval Carols, John Stevens, ed., London: Stainer & Bell, 1958 (Second Revised Edition), #79, p. 66.
7. The Boar Is Dead (Husk, 1868, with extensive notes); compare The Boare Is Dead (Sandys, 1833) and The Boare is dead (Thomas Wright, 1841). Both Sandys and Wright note that this is a carol on bringing the Boar's Head, used before the Christmas Prince (a kind of Lord of Misrule) at St. John the Baptist's College, Oxford, Christmas, 1607.
Illustration from Dr. Edith Rickert:
Each version above has its own note, sometimes short and sometimes long.
Artwork by John A. Hows from Christmas In Art And Song. New York: The Arundel Printing and Publishing Company, 1879.
The following is extracted from William Hone, The Every Day Book, 2 Vols. London: William Tegg, 1825, 1827 (Volume 1, 1825, December 25):
There were anciently great doings in the halls of the inns of court at Christmas time. At the Inner-Temple early in the morning, the gentlemen of the inn went to church, and after the service they did then "presently repair into the hall to breakfast with brawn, mustard, and malmsey." At the first course at dinner, was "served in, a fair and large Bore's head upon a silver platter with minstralsye."1
The Boar's Head.
With our forefathers a soused boar's head was borne to the principal table in the hall with great state and solemnity, as the first dish on Christmas-day.
In the book of "Christmasse Carolles" printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1521, are the words sung at this "chefe servyce," or on bringing in this the boar's head, with great ceremony, as the first dish: it is in the next column.
A CAROL bryngyng in the Boar's Head.
Caput Apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino.
The bore's head in hande bring I,
With garlandes gay and rosemary,
I pray you all synge merely,
Qui estis in convivio.The bore's head, I understande,
Is the chefe servyce in this lande.
Loke wherever it be fande
Servite com Cantico.Be gladde, lords, both more and lasse,
For this hath ordayned our stewarde
To chere you all this Christmasse,
The bore's head with mustarde.
The Boar's Head at Christmas.
"With garlandes gay and rosemary."
Warton says, "This carol, yet with many innovations, is retained at Queen's-college, in Oxford." It is still sung in that college, somewhat altered, "to the common chant of the prose version of the psalms in cathedrals;" so, however, the rev. Mr. Dibdin says, as mentioned before.
Mr. Brand thinks it probable that Chaucer alluded to the custom of bearing the boar's head, in the following passage of the "Franklein's Tale:"—
"Janus sitteth by the fire with double berd,
And he drinketh of his bugle-horne the wine,
Before him standeth the brawne of the tusked swine."
In "The Wonderful Yeare, 1603," Dekker speaks of persons apprehensive of catching the plague, and says, "they went (most bitterly) miching and muffled up and down, with rue and wormwood stuft into their eares and nosthrils, looking like so many bores heads stuck with branches of rosemary, to be served in for brawne at Christmas."
Holinshed says, that in 1170, upon the young prince's coronation, king Henry II. "served his son at the table as sewer, bringing up the bore's head, with trumpets before it, according to the manner."2
An engraving from a clever drawing by Rowlandson, in the possession of the editor of the Every-Day Book, may gracefully close this article.
A Boor's Head.
"Civil as an orange."
Shakespeare.
Notes from Hone:
1. Dugdale's Orig. Jurid. Return
2. Grose. Return
Editor's Note: The following is from Hazlitt's 1905 edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities Of Great Britain:
Holinshed says that, in the year 1170, upon the day of the young Prince's coronation, King Henry the Second "served his son at the table as sewer, bringing up the bore's head with trumpet's before it, according to the manner." It is probable that Chaucer alluded to the above custom in the following passage, in this Franklin's Tale:
"Janus sitteth by the fire with double berd,
And he drinketh of his bugle-horn the wine,
Before him standeth the brawne of the tusked swine."
Dugdale, speaking of the Christmas Day Ceremonies in the Inner Temple, says: "Service in the church ended, the gentlemen presently repair into the hall to breakfast, with brawn, mustard, and malmsey." At dinner, "at the first course is served in a fair and large Bores Head, upon a silver platter, with minstralsye." Orig. Jurid., p. 155. Aubrey tell us (1678) that, before the Civil Wars, it was customary in gentlemen's houses to bring in at the first dish at Christmas a boar's head, with a lemon in its mouth. Morant says that the inhabitants of Horn Church, in the Liberty of Havering, when they paid the great tithes on Christmas Day, were treated with a bull and brawn, and the boar's head was wrestled for. The ceremony was long observed, as Hearne tells us, at Queen's College, Oxford, with the improvement that the boar's head was neatly carved in wood. Ritson printed the Carol sung in bringing in the head from a collection published in 1521. Ancient Songs, ed., 1844, p. 158. In later times the words were greatly altered.
In Dekker's "Wonderful Yeare, 1603," signat. D 2, our author, speaking of persons apprehensive of catching the plague, says, "they went (most bitterly) miching and muffled up and downe, with rue and wormewood stuft into their eares and nosthrils, looking like so many bores heads stuck with branches of rosemary, to be served in for brawne at Christmas."
In the "Gothamite Tales," 1630, No. 18 is an anecdote of a Scot, who ordered of a carver a boar's head for a sign to his inn at Gotham. "Hee did come to a carver or a joyner, saying in his mother tongue: I say, speake, canst thou make me a bare-head? Yea, said the carver. Then said the Scottish-man: make me a bare-head anonst Youle, and thouse have twenty pence for thy hire. I will doe it, said the carver. On S. Andrewes day before Christmas the which is named Youle in Scotland (and in England in the North), the Scottish man did come to London for the boreshead to set it at the doore for a signe." This is alluded to in King's "Art of Cookery," p. 75:
"At Christmas time ---
Then if you won'd send up the brawner's head,
Sweet rosemary and bays around it spread;
His foaming tusks let some large pippin grace,
Or, 'midst these thundring spears an orange place;
Sauce, like himself, offensive to its foes,
The roguish mustard, dang'rous to the nose.
Sack, and the well-spic'd Hippocras the wine,
Wassail the bowl with antient ribbands fine
Porridge with plumbs, and turkeys with the chine."
See also:
Boars Head Carols, Henry Vizetelly, Christmas With The Poets (London: David Bogue, 1851).
The Boar's Head, Washington Irving, Old Christmas – From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving (London: Macmillan & Co., Fifth Edition, 1886), p. xx; Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott.
