The boar's head soused, then, was carried into the great hall with much state, preceded by the Master of the Revels, and followed by choristers and minstrels, singing and playing compositions in its honor. Dugdale relates that at the Inner Temple, for the first course of the Christmas dinner, was "served in, a fair and large bore's head upon a silver platter, with minstrelsye." And here we would observe, what we do not think has been before remarked, that the boar's head carols appear to have systematically consisted of three verses. A manuscript indeed which we once met with, stated that the "caroll, upon the bringynge in of the bore's head, was sung to the glorie of the blessed Trinytie;" and the three subsequent illustrative specimens—in which the peculiarity mentioned may be observed—tend to confirm this notion. At St. John's, Oxford, in 1607, before the bearer of the boar's head—who was selected for his height and lustiness, and wore a green silk scarf, with an empty sword-scabbard dangling at his side—went a runner dressed in a horseman's coat, having a boar's spear in his hand, a huntsman in green carrying the naked and bloody sword belonging to the head-bearer's scabbard, and "two pages in tafatye sarcenet," each with a "mess of mustard." Upon which occasion these verses were sung:—
"The boare is dead,
Loe, heare is his head,
What man could have done more
Then his head of to strike,
Meleager like,
And bringe it as I doe before?
"He livinge spoyled
Where good men toyled,
Which made kinde Ceres sorrye;
But now, dead and drawne,
Is very good brawne,
And wee have brought it for ye.
"Then sett downe the swineyard,
The foe to the vineyard,
Lett Bacchus crowne his fall;
Lett this boare's head and mustard
Stand for pigg, goose, and custard,
And so you are welcome all."
So important was the office of boar's-head bearer considered to be, that, in 1170, Holinshed has chronicled the circumstance of England's king, Henry II., bringing up to the table of his son, the young prince, a boar's head, with trumpeters going before him. From this species of service it is probable that many of our heraldic bearings have originated. "The ancient crest of the family of Edgecumbe," observes Ritson, "was the boar's head crowned with bays upon a charger; which," he adds, "has been very injudiciously changed into the entire animal."
This same diligent arranger and illustrator of our old ballads gives us, in his collection of ancient songs, a Boar's-head Carol, which probably belongs to the fourteenth century, from a manuscript in his possession,—now, we believe, in the British Museum.
In die nativitatis.
"Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell,
Tydyngs gode y thyngke to telle.
The borys hede that we bryng here,
Be tokeneth a prince with owte pere,
Ys born this day to bye vs dere,
Nowell.
"A bore ys a souerayn beste,
And acceptable in every feste,
So mote thys lorde be to moste & leste,
Nowell.
"This borys hede we bryng with song,
In worchyp of hym that thus sprang
Of a virgyne to redresse all wrong,
Nowell."
The printing-press of Wynkyn de Worde has preserved to us the carol believed to have been generally used, prior to 1521, upon these occasions; a modernized version of which continues to be sung in Queen's College, Oxford. It is entitled "A Caroll bringyne in the Bores heed;" and runs thus:—
"Caput apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino,
The bore's heade 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 cum cantico.
"Be gladde, lordes both more and lasse,
For this hath ordayned our stewarde,
To chere you all this Christmasse,
The bore's head with mustarde."