Boar's head

“ STUDYING ANIMALS. The boar is certainly the bravest of all animals: he is the real "King of the Jungle," and the other animals all know it. If you watch a drinking-pool in the jungle at night, you will see the animals that come to it all creeping down nervously, looking out in every direction for hidden enemies. But when the boar comes he simply swaggers down, with his great head and shiny tusks swinging from side to side; he cares for nobody, but everybody cares for him; even a tiger drinking at the pool will give a snarl and sneak quickly out of sight. ”

“ Queen’s College, Oxford, was also celebrated for its custom of bringing in the boar’s head with its old carol. Even in the present day, though brawn, in most cases, is considered as a sort of substitute, the boar’s head with lemon in his mouth may be seen, though rarely, and when met with, may be safely recommended as a dainty; but some of the soi-disant boars’ heads seen at Christmas in a pompous state of whiskerless obesity, may without disparagement take Lady Constance’s words literally and “hang a calf skin on [32] their recreant limbs.” Brawn is probably as old as boar’s head ”

“ A tradition of the same college states the introduction there of the boar's head (which according to Ritson, is now a mere representation "neatly carved in wood") to be contrived "as a commemoration of an act of valor performed by a student of the college, who while walking in the neighboring forest of Shotover, and reading Aristotle, was suddenly attacked by a wild boar. The furious beast came open-mouthed upon the youth ”

“ The tooth of this dead wild boar, in the evening, causes the death of the young hero or heroine, or else transforms them into wild beasts. In popular fairy tales the witch, feigning a wish to comb the head of the hero or the heroine, thrusts into his or her head now a large pin, now a dead man's tooth, and thus deprives them of life or human form. This is a reminiscence of the tusk of the cloudy, nocturnal, or wintry wild boar who kills the sun, or metamorphoses him, or puts him to sleep.
To represent the evening sun asleep, a curious particular is offered us in the myth of Adonis. ”

“ Of an old wild boar the head only is good to eat, while every part of the young one, of not more than one year old, is extremely delicate. The flesh of the domestic boar is still worse than that of the wild one, and it is only by castration and fattening that they are rendered fit to eat. The ancients castrated the young wild boars, which they could get from their mothers, and then returned them again into the woods, where they soon grew fat, and their flesh was much better than that of domestics hogs. ”

“ THE WILD BOAR [270] inhabits Europe, North Africa, and Hindostan, each country having its own peculiar type or race, which sometimes is so marked as to constitute separate species in the opinion of first-rate naturalists.
The Wild Boar is distinguished by a body generally of a dusky-brown or greyish colour, having a tendency to black, and being diversified with black spots. The canines or tusks in the male are long and powerful, and project beyond the upper lip, the mouth is large, and the elongated head is set on a short neck rising out of a thick and muscular body. ”

“ Brawn is the flesh of the boar pickled in a peculiar manner, and is always better tasted according to the greater age of the animal of which it is made. After the boar is killed, the head and legs are cut off, and the bones are carefully taken from the remaining part. ”

“ The head is short, the forehead broad and flat, the ears short, rounded at the tips, and inclined toward the neck, the jaw armed with sharp, crooked tusks, which curve slightly upward, and are capable of inflicting fearful wounds, the eye full, neck thick and muscular, the shoulders high, the loins broad, the tail stiff, and finished off with a tuft of bristles at the tip, the haunch well turned, and the leg strong. A full-grown wild boar in India averages from thirty to forty inches in height at the shoulder ”

“ They are extremely sharp, and are bent in an upward circle. Unlike his domestic brother, who roots up here and there, or wherever his fancy takes, the wild boar ploughs the ground in continuous lines or furrows. The boar, when selected as the parent of a stock, should have a small head, be deep and broad in the chest; the chine should be arched, the ribs and barrel well rounded, with the haunches falling full down nearly to the hock; and he should always be more compact and smaller than the female. The colour of the wild boar is always of a uniform hue, and generally of an iron grey ”

“ Then the boar is wonderfully tenacious of life, and has a skin so tough that a sharp weapon and a strong arm are needed to inflict a mortal wound. Even when the animal has fallen, and is apparently dead, an experienced hunter always drives his knife into its throat, as boars have an awkward way of suddenly reviving, leaping on their legs, and dashing through their foes into the bush. ”

“ The boar is by no means an animal easy to knock over. The forest roads are never more than ten to fifteen paces broad; and as there are marksmen both on the right and left, it is necessary to reserve your fire until the animal has crossed the road and is plunging again into cover. In addition to this, there are only two spots where a mortal wound can be inflicted upon the boar—either behind the shoulder or in the neck. ”

“ Before I close my letter I must tell you of an adventure I have had with a wild boar, which was really dangerous. F—— and another gentleman were riding with me one afternoon in a very lonely gully at the back of the run, when the dogs (who always accompany us) put up a large, fierce, black, boar out of some thick flax-bushes. Of course the hunting instinct, which all young Englishmen possess, was in full force instantly; and in default of any weapon these two jumped off their horses and picked up, out of the creek close by, the largest and heaviest stones they could lift. ”

“ Many of the forests in our own country were infested by wild boars. The Anglo-Saxons seem, from the rude frescoes and prints which are handed down to us, to have hunted this animal on foot with no other weapon but the boar-spear, and attended by powerful dogs ”

“ The largest boar I have ever seen measured six feet four from snout to tail, three feet four at the shoulder, and weighed twenty stone—clean. An old beater of eighty, whose dog had been wounded to the death, when he came up to the monster lying lifeless, got upon the body, took off from his shaven pate the red gun-cover which he used as a turban, and throwing it on the ground, cried out, ‘Now I can die in peace. ”

“ Boars' hides have shared the same fate. These are far thicker than those of the tame species, and should make excellent saddles. So tough are they upon the live animal that it requires a very sharp-pointed knife to penetrate them, and too much care cannot be bestowed upon the manufacture of a knife for this style of hunting, as the boar is one of the fiercest and dangerous of animals. ”

“ All day their bodies are cooled and refreshed by water. I wish I were a boar.” Accordingly at night he recounted to the Rishi the troubles of the life of an ape and the pleasures of that of a boar, and begged of him to change him into a boar. The sage, whose kindness knew no bounds, complied with his pet’s request, and turned him into a wild boar. For two whole days our boar kept his body soaking wet, and on the third day, as he was splashing about in his favourite element, whom [135] should he see but the king of the country riding on a richly caparisoned elephant. ”

“ Very different is he from his tame brethren with which we are acquainted—old grunters, who wallow about the mud-puddles and sleep serenely for hours, with their fat sides baking in the sun. The wild boar is as fast as a horse, and as savage as the crossest bull. He can run so that you can scarcely catch up to him with your nag at the top of his speed, and when you do reach him he will be very apt, if you are not watchful, to rip up your horse with his tusks and cut some terrible gashes in your own legs, besides. ”

“ The less the sow, after bringing forth her young, is meddled with, the more comfortable her bedding, the more regularly and gently she has been previously managed and treated, the less likely is she to violate one of the great laws of nature.
"The wild boar, as we have said, is a dangerous animal; and so indeed, to a certain extent, is the domestic boar of some of the larger breeds. Instances are not unfrequent of boars turning furiously upon their keepers, especially if interfered with when in company with the female, or if constrained to quit her society. ”

“ Walk with me a bit in my tender childhood, bed with me a night and imagine yourself dreaming such incomprehensible horrors. Remember I was an inexperienced child. I had never seen a wild boar in my life. For that matter I had never seen a domesticated pig. The nearest approach to one that I had seen was breakfast bacon sizzling in its fat. And yet here, real as life, wild boars dashed through my dreams, and I, with fantastic parents, swung through the lofty tree-spaces. ”

“ Boar-hunting is not without its dangers. If the boar finds itself hard pressed by the pack of hounds pursuing it, the animal takes refuge in some dense thicket of brambles and holly, and forces a passage through the thorny rampart where no other would dare to penetrate. Through the opening thus made rush the dogs, vying with one another in ardor and in barking. There are eight, twelve, fifteen of them; no matter, the boar awaits with firmness its numerous assailants. Backing up against a gnarled stump which protects it in the rear, it sharpens its tusks and works its drivelling jaws. ”

“ The wild boar is also a formidable foe, not to flocks, but to cultivated fields, where it does great damage; besides, it is a brutal beast, rather dangerous to meet in the depths of a forest. In size and shape it closely resembles the common pig, the chief difference being in the boar’s coarse, blackish-red coat; its dorsal bristles, stiff and strong and standing up in anger in a horrible looking mane ”

“ Wild boars often have dreadful combats with each other. In this engraving we have a representation of such a fight. The weapons with which they fight are sharp tusks growing out of the under jaw. With these tusks they can inflict dreadful wounds.
Savages, when they attack the wild boar, arm themselves with spears, and station themselves at different places in the forest, where they think the boar will pass. Sometimes they hide themselves in thickets, so as to be ready to come out suddenly and attack the boar when the dogs have seized him. ”

“ They project with a descending curve from the upper jaw, and would give the animal the very false appearance of a small wild boar, but for the great delicacy of its legs, which are more slender than even those of our roebuck, to whom, with the exception of the horns, it bears a close resemblance, as its name implies. ”

“ The boar pulls himself together, feeling that he is to die, and, up to his belly in water, he bravely awaits the pack. With his eye glowing with rage, his bristles erect, he utters grunts of defiance. The fifty dogs throw themselves on to him without a moment’s hesitation ”

“ And therefore as soon as the form of the traces of his foot is in the earth, the form of the bones is there also, and commonly a great boar maketh a longer trace with one of his claws than with the other in front or behind, and sometimes both. And when a man seeth the tokens beforesaid greater, he may deem him greater, and the smaller the trace, the smaller the boar. The sow from the boar ye may know well, for the sow maketh not so good a talon as a right young boar doth. And also a sow's claws are longer and sharper in front than a young boar's. ”

“ It is not, however, only at certain times and under certain circumstances that the boar is dangerous: a boar, especially one of the large old breeds, is by no means a safe animal to venture near at any time, and we have more than once seen sows almost equally savage ”

“ But men do not take them to the curée nor are they judged as of the hart or other beasts of venery.
A boar can with great pain live twenty years; he never casts his teeth nor his tusks nor loses them unless by a stroke.83 The boar's grease is good as that of other tame swine, and their flesh also. Some men say that by the foreleg of a boar one can know how old he is, for he will have as many small pits in the forelegs as he has years, but of this I make no affirmation. ”

“ The wild boar, properly so called, is neither a solitary nor a gregarious animal. For the first two or three years the whole herd follows the sow, and all unite in defence against any enemies, calling upon each other with loud cries in case of emergency, and forming in regular line of battle, the weakest occupying the rear. ”

“ The struggle which follows is terrible; the boar’s tusks tell at every blow, and the water becomes literally red with blood. At length the foremost sportsmen come up, and it is high time they do. Seven dogs are already lying on their backs, with their legs in the air, and almost all bear marks of the boar’s terrible tusks. ”

“ The boar, when aware that he is pursued, puts on pace. It requires a fast horse to come up for the first quarter of a mile; but when hard pressed, the boar gets blown, shortens stride, and begins to dodge amongst the low bush.
One of the best gallops I ever had was in pursuit of a huge boar, who took across the lake from a thicket of Arára. ”