The Boar's Head Feast is a festival of the
Christmas season
The Christmas season or the festive season (also known in some countries as the holiday season or the holidays) is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and other countries that is generally considered to run from late Novembe ...
.
Observances
The fest of the Presentation of the Boar's Head is observed at:
* Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut
* Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Saginaw, Michigan
*Lutheran Church in St. Charles, Missouri
*Saint Paul United Methodist Church in Louisville, Kentucky
*The First Church of Winsted in Winsted, Connecticut
*Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York
*Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio
*St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania
*First United Methodist Church in Huntsville, Alabama
*Trinity United Methodist Church in Springfield, Massachusetts
*St. John's Episcopal Church in Youngstown, Ohio
*Ivy Hall in West Philadelphia, PA. Presented by The Cephalophore Society, a group of Catholic Gentlemen, annually on the feast of St. Thomas Becket
*Plymouth Congregational Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana (since 1975)
*Christ Presbyterian Church in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania
*
Hoosac School
Hoosac School is a private co-educational Episcopal boarding school located in Hoosick, New York, United States.
History
Hoosac school was founded in 1889 by Dr. Edward Dudley Tibbits. Facilities are located on the Tibbits Estate, which rest ...
,
Hoosick, New York
Hoosick is a town in Rensselaer County, New York, United States. The population was 6,924 at the 2010 census. It was named from the Hoosic River.
The Town of Hoosick is in the northeastern corner of Rensselaer County.
History
The town of Hoosick ...
*University Christian Church in Fort Worth, Texas
Oglethorpe University
Oglethorpe University
Oglethorpe University is a private college in Brookhaven, Georgia. It was chartered in 1835 and named in honor of General James Edward Oglethorpe, founder of the Colony of Georgia.
History
Oglethorpe University was chartered in 1834 in Mid ...
in
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
celebrates the Boar's Head Ceremony annually on the first Friday in December. Members of the
Omicron Delta Kappa
Omicron Delta Kappa (), also known as The Circle and ODK, is one of the most prestigious honor societies in the United States with chapters at more than 300 college campuses. It was founded December 3, 1914, at Washington and Lee University in ...
society process with a roasted boar's head, followed by a reading of the "Boar's Head" story, a concert and a
Christmas tree lighting
Christmas lights (also known as fairy lights, festive lights or string lights) are lights often used for decoration in celebration of Christmas, often on display throughout the Christmas season including Advent and Christmastide. The custom go ...
. University tradition associates the observance with the arms of the university's namesake,
James Edward Oglethorpe
James Edward Oglethorpe (22 December 1696 – 30 June 1785) was a British soldier, Member of Parliament, and philanthropist, as well as the founder of the colony of Georgia in what was then British America. As a social reformer, he hoped to re ...
, depicting three boars' heads and a fourth as a crest.
Queens University of Charlotte
Through the efforts of Miss Alma Edwards, a greatly beloved Latin professor at
Queens University of Charlotte
The Queens University of Charlotte is a private university in Charlotte, North Carolina. It has approximately 2,300 undergraduate and graduate students through the College of Arts and Sciences, the McColl School of Business, the Wayland H. Cato, ...
, Queens hosted the first Boar's Head dinner in 1932, which has remained an annual event since that time. The annual feast is hosted by the Department of Student Engagement, within the Division of Student Life, and is a tradition in which seniors are asked to play roles within the telling of the boar's head story with performances by the Dance Club and Choir. Young Dining Hall is decorated for the feast and meals are served family style. The President of the University, and family, is in attendance yearly and personally invites three to four guest to sit with him/her at the head table. The President, President's guest, and seniors within the program, dress in renaissance regalia. Queens presents two boar's heads at the feast, carried in by seniors. At the end of the feast, two faculty members, nominated by seniors, conduct the annual Yule Log Ceremony, weaving through the hall as students tap their holly branches on the yule log for good luck for the new year. At the conclusion of the event, students walk to the fire pit where they throw their holly branches into the fire and sing carols. Information of the history of this event may be found within the archives o
Everett Libraryon campus.
University of Rochester
In 1934, the presidency of
Benjamin Rush Rhees
Benjamin Rush Rhees ( 08 February 1860–05 January 1939) was the third president of the University of Rochester, serving from 1900 to 1935.
Education
Rhees, great-grandson of radical Baptist minister Morgan John Rhys, earned his undergraduate d ...
was waning and that of
Alan Valentine was rising. Valentine, a
Rhodes Scholar
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
at
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
, helped to solidify this tradition at Rochester.
This American variant honors a professor and a club at the university each year hence.
The professor is responsible for the recounting of the tale of the boar, often at the expense of the students enrolled in their classes. The student club honored receives the head of the slain boar, the highest honor for that academic year. The feast has been held in numerous locations on the
River Campus and has settled into the newly refurbished Richard Feldman Ballroom.
See also
*
Sonargöltr
The or was the boar sacrificed as part of the celebration of Yule in Germanic paganism, on whose bristles solemn vows were made in some forms of a tradition known as .
Attestations Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks
refers to the tradition of swearing ...
*
List of dining events
This is a list of historic and contemporary dining events, which includes banquets, feasts, dinners and dinner parties. Such gatherings involving dining sometimes consist of elaborate affairs with full course dinners and various beverages, while ...
References
External links
The Queen’s College, OxfordSt. John's College, CambridgeThe Legend of the BoarHurstpierpoint College
{{Christmas
Christmas festivals
Christmas meals and feasts
Academic meals