MUSIC AT DINNER,
WINCHESTER.
SOW AS HARPIST,
BEVERLEY MINSTER.
SOW AND BAGPIPES,
DURHAM CASTLE.
The special sacrifice of the pig was not peculiar to Scandinavia, for the Druids and the Greeks also offered up a boar at the winter solstice. The sacrifice of a pig was a constant preliminary of the Athenian assemblies. As a corn destroyer the same animal was sacrificed to Ceres.
The above explains the recurrence of the pig rather than the pig musician. A pregnant sow was, however, yearly sacrificed to Mercury, the inventor of the harp, and a sow playing the harp is among the rich set of choir carvings in Beverley Minster.
The chase of the boar was the sport of September, the ordinary killing season, the swine being then in condition after their autumn feed of bucon, or beechmast (hence bacon), “His Martinmas has come” passed into a proverb. The prevalence of the pig as a food animal had undoubtedly its share in the frequency of art reference.
In the Christian adoption of pagan attributes, the pig was apportioned to St. Anthony, it is said, variously, because he had been a swine-herd, or lived in woods. The smallest or weakling pig in a litter, called in the north “piggy-widdy” (small white pig), and in the south midlands the “dillin” (perhaps equivalent to delayed), and is elsewhere styled the Anthony pig, as specially needing the protection of his patron.