Oxfordshire.
In the buttery of St. John’s College, Oxford, an ancient candle socket of stone still remains, ornamented with the figure of the Holy Lamb. It was formerly used to burn the Christmas candle in, on the high table at supper during the twelve nights of this festival.—Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 467.
It was formerly a custom for the butcher of Merton College, about Christmas time, to invite the scholars to a treat at his house, when he used to provide a bull for the steward to knock down with his own hands, whence this treat was called The Kill-Bull.—Pointer, Oxoniensis Academia, 1749, p. 23.
The following account of the ancient custom of bringing in a boar’s head at Queen’s College, Oxford, is taken from a MS., in the Bodleian Library, quoted in the Antiquary (1873, vol. iii. p. 47):—
There is a custom at Queen’s College to serve up every year a boar’s head, provided by the manciple against Christmas Day. This boar’s head being boyl’d or roasted, is laid in a great charger, covered with a garland of bays or laurell as broad at bottom as the brims of the chargers. When the first course is served up in the refectory on Christmas Day, in the said college, the manciple brings the said boar’s head from the kitchen up to the high table, accompanied with one of the tabarders (i.e., the scholars), who lays his hand on the charger. The tabarder sings a song, and when he comes to the chorus all the scholars that are in the refectory joyn together and sing it:
I.
“The boar’s head in hand bear I,
Bedeck’d with bays and rosemary,
And I pray you master merry be,
Quotquot estis in convivio.
Chorus. Caput apri defero
Chorus. Reddens laudes Domino.
II.
The boar’s head, as I understand,
Is the bravest dish in the land,
Being thus bedeck’d with a gay garland,
Let us servire convivio.
Chorus. Caput apri, &c.
III.
Our steward has provided this
In honour of the King of bliss,
Which on this day to be served is,
In Reginensi atrio.
Chorus. Caput apri,” &c.
According to Mr. Wade (Walks in Oxford, 1817, vol. i. p. 128) the usage is in commemoration of an act of valour performed by a student of the college, who, while walking in the neighbouring forest of Shotover, and reading Aristotle, was suddenly attacked by a wild boar. The furious beast came open-mouthed upon the youth, who, however, very courageously, and with a happy presence of mind, rammed in the volume, and crying Græcum est, fairly choked the savage.
In an audit-book of Trinity College for the year 1559, Warton found a disbursement “pro prandio Principis natalicii.” A Christmas prince, or Lord of Misrule, he adds, corresponding to the Imperator at Cambridge, was a common temporary magistrate in the colleges of Oxford.—See Brand’s Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 498; The Antiquary, 1873, vol. iii. p. 53; Wood, in his Athenæ Oxonienses, alludes to the Christmas prince at St. John’s and Merton Colleges.
Mummings at Christmas are common in Oxfordshire. At Islip some of the mummers wear masks, others, who cannot get masks, black their faces and dress themselves up with haybands tied round their arms and bodies. The smaller boys black their faces, and go about singing—
“A merry Christmas and a happy new year,
Your pockets full of money, and your cellars full of beer.”
Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 466.
Dr. Lee, in N. & Q. (5th S. vol. ii. pp. 503-505), has given a curious old miracle play, the text of which he says was taken down by himself from the lips of one of the performers in 1853.
Aubrey informs us that in several parts of Oxfordshire it was the custom for the maidservant to ask the man for ivy to decorate the house, and if he refused or neglected to fetch in a supply the maids stole a pair of his breeches, and nailed them up to the gate in the yard or highway. A similar usage prevailed in other places, when the refusal to comply with such a request incurred the penalty of being debarred from the well-known privilege of the mistletoe.—See Book of Days, vol. ii. p. 753.