The story behind The Boar's Head Carol
The Boar's Head Carol is a feast song. A singer brings the boar's head in by hand, decked with bays and rosemary, and asks the masters at the table to be merry. The burden answers in Latin: Caput apri defero, reddens laudes Domino, the boar's head I bear, giving praises to the Lord. English and Latin share the piece. It is macaronic, and it is about dinner.
Wynkyn de Worde printed a form of it in 1521 in Christmasse Carolles, the earliest known printed collection of Christmas carols in English, of which a precious fragment survives. The song is still sung at The Queen's College, Oxford, when the boar's head is carried into the hall at the college's Christmas feast, the Boar's Head Gaudy. A college legend explains the custom with a student, a book, and a wild boar. The legend is a college story. The custom of serving a boar's head at midwinter is older and wider than that tale.
History and origins
Serving a boar's head at a great winter feast is a medieval aristocratic and collegiate practice, with cousins in earlier northern European midwinter eating. The head was a show dish, garlanded and brought in with ceremony, a sign that the household could provide the rarest thing in the land, as the carol itself boasts. Caroling at such a feast mixed English storytelling with Latin tags that students and clerks already had in their mouths. Caput apri defero is a burden, a refrain the company knows, while the soloist tells the news of the dish. Quot estis in convivio, as many as are at the feast, makes the whole table the choir's audience and its congregation.
In 1521 the London printer Wynkyn de Worde, successor in craft to William Caxton, issued Christmasse Carolles. What survives is a leaf, and on it is this boar's head song in a form recognizably ours. That fragment is a landmark: printed Christmas carols in English, not only songs living in memory. The 1521 words are not identical in every syllable to the Queen's College version sung now. Oral and collegiate transmission edited lines, as they always do. The heart is stable: the head, the greenery, the plea to be merry, the Latin burden, and praise of the Lord and of the King of bliss. A later line, in Reginensi atrio, in the hall of the queen, localizes the song to Queen's. That Latin is a college adaptation of the place where the dish is served, not a phrase that must have stood in every sixteenth century singing.
The Queen's College ceremony is the living heir people travel to see. At the Boar's Head Gaudy in the Christmas season, a procession enters the hall. A soloist, traditionally a chorister or a member of the choir, sings the verses. The company answers with the Latin burden. The head is carried in, often by college cooks, garnished, and set before the high table. Trumpets or organ may punctuate the entry. The ceremony has been described by antiquaries for centuries and is still done with a script the college guards. It is a real continuing custom, not a Victorian invention pretending to be Tudor, though like all long customs it has absorbed later polish.
The explanation most often told is a legend, and it should wear that label. The story says that a student of the college was walking in Shotover, reading Aristotle, when a wild boar attacked. He thrust the volume down the animal's throat and cried Graecum est, it is Greek, and the boar choked. The feast, in this telling, commemorates the escape. William Henry Husk and other nineteenth century collectors recorded the anecdote as a tradition formerly current in Oxford. It is a wonderful college story and a poor piece of natural history. Wild boars were not waiting in Shotover for philosophers on the date the ceremony happens to need. The dish and the carol do not depend on the joke. They depend on a feast, a procession, and praise.
Full lyrics
Verse 1
The boar's head in hand bear I,
Bedecked with bays and rosemary.
And I pray you, my masters, be merry,
Quot estis in convivio.
Burden
Caput apri defero,
Reddens laudes Domino.
Verse 2
The boar's head, as I understand,
Is the rarest dish in all this land,
Which thus bedecked with a gay garland
Let us servire cantico.
Verse 3
Our steward hath provided this
In honour of the King of bliss,
Which on this day to be served is
In Reginensi atrio.
The text above follows a standard public domain version. Singers will meet small changes from book to book, especially in folk carols.
Lyrics presented for educational and personal use. Sing along responsibly this holiday season!
Meaning and symbolism
The boar's head is abundance offered at Christ's season. The carol never forgets to turn the boast toward God. Praises to the Lord, and honor of the King of bliss, keep a rowdy dinner inside Christmas rather than inside mere luxury. Bay and rosemary are the green of winter festival, fragrant and practical in a kitchen. The rarest dish in all this land is hyperbole of hospitality. Macaronic Latin marks the room as a learned hall. Quot estis in convivio is both welcome and instruction: everyone here is part of the singing.
The legend's meaning, once it is fenced off as legend, is about wit surviving violence. A book, and a Greek book, defeats the beast. That is a scholar's myth of his own college, flattering to a hall full of students, and it has entertained centuries of guests. It is not the carol's theology. The theology is simpler and better: the best dish is served in honor of a king who is not the college patron only, and the serving is itself a song. Feast and worship are not enemies in this text. They walk in together.
Fun facts and statistics
- The carol begins The boar's head in hand bear I, decked with bays and rosemary.
- The Latin burden is Caput apri defero, reddens laudes Domino.
- Wynkyn de Worde printed a form of it in 1521 in Christmasse Carolles.
- That book survives only in a fragment and is the earliest known printed English Christmas carol collection.
- Queen's College, Oxford, still sings it as the boar's head is carried in at the Boar's Head Gaudy.
- The line in Reginensi atrio localizes the college text to the queen's hall.
- The Shotover story of a student, Aristotle, and a boar is a college legend, not a documented event.
- William Henry Husk recorded that legend as an Oxford tradition in the nineteenth century.
- The custom of a boar's head feast is older and broader than the college anecdote.
Top 5 most popular renditions
Wynkyn de Worde
1521
The landmark rendition in print is Wynkyn de Worde's Christmasse Carolles of 1521, known now from a surviving fragment that contains the boar's head song. Readers and singers in Tudor London could buy Christmas carols as a printed leaf, not only learn them by ear. The wording is ancestral to the modern text rather than identical in every line. This scrap is why historians can say the carol was a Christmas piece in the early sixteenth century, tied to feasting and to macaronic Latin, and not a Victorian fake. Every later college script stands downstream of songs like this one.
Wynkyn de Worde
The Queen's College, Oxford
present
At the Boar's Head Gaudy, Queen's College still processes a garlanded boar's head through the hall while a soloist sings the English verses and the company thunders the Latin burden. Cooks, choir, and undergraduates share a script that includes the line about the queen's hall, in Reginensi atrio. This is the most important living rendition because it keeps the carol attached to a real dish and a real room. Guests who want the Shotover legend will hear it as college lore. The procession itself does not depend on believing that a Greek sentence stopped a boar. It depends on showing up to Christmas dinner ready to answer Caput apri defero.
The Queen's College, Oxford
Nineteenth century antiquaries
1868
Collectors such as William Henry Husk, in books like Songs of the Nativity in the 1860s, wrote the ceremony and the Shotover anecdote down for readers who would never see Oxford. Their rendition is prose plus a printed carol, and it shaped how the Victorian revival understood old feast songs. Husk is careful enough that a modern reteller can separate the amusing tradition from the older custom of the dish. Antiquarian pages are why the Greek punch line Graecum est is famous. They are also why a responsible account keeps the word legend in the same paragraph.
Nineteenth century antiquaries
Early music ensembles
20th century
Twentieth century early music groups reconstructed Tudor pronunciations and instrumental consorts around the 1521 text, sometimes preferring a reading closer to de Worde than to the current Queen's script. Recorders, lute, or a simple drum accompany a solo voice, and the burden is sung by the rest of a small choir. This rendition serves the concert hall and the recording catalog. It can be wonderfully clear about the macaronic shifts. It should cite which source text it follows. A polished encore is not the gaudy, and it does not need to be, if the notes admit the college still owns the feast.
Early music ensembles
Parish Christmas dinners
present
Churches and schools now sing the carol at Christmas dinners and in carol services that allow a feast song, often with a symbolic platter instead of a hunt trophy. The solo and burden form still teaches itself in one rehearsal. A spoken legend, clearly labeled, gets the laugh the Shotover story deserves, and then the Latin praise returns the room to the King of bliss. This widespread rendition is how the 1521 fragment stays a song rather than a museum label. Bay and rosemary on a tray are enough theater if the burden is loud and the welcome is real.
Parish Christmas dinners
Sheet music
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Notes for singers
If you place The Boar's Head Carol in a December service, a school program, or a living room sing, teach The Boar's Head Carol before you add harmony. A confident melody lets guests enter on the refrain. Say the names when you introduce it. The words are credited to Traditional, and the music to Traditional. The year to remember is 1521, and the place to name is England.
This sits in the library as a folk carol. Let that tradition set the tempo. A lullaby loses its point if it is hurried. A dance carol loses its point if every syllable is precious. Leave a breath at the end of the verse so the next line feels chosen rather than chased.
The carol begins The boar's head in hand bear I, decked with bays and rosemary. Hold that fact in the introduction you speak, not only in a program note. The Latin burden is Caput apri defero, reddens laudes Domino. Those two details give a listener a reason to hear the song as a made thing, not as wallpaper.
When the group is small, one voice can carry the verse and everyone can take the refrain. When the group is a choir, decide in advance whether you are telling a story or painting a picture. Story songs want clear words. Picture songs can bloom. The Boar's Head Carol will tell you which it is after a single unaccompanied read through.
Questions readers ask
Wynkyn de Worde printed a form of it in 1521 in Christmasse Carolles. Only a fragment of that book survives, and it is the earliest known printed collection of Christmas carols in English. The modern Queen's College words are closely related, with some lines, especially the queen's hall, localized later. The 1521 print is the historical anchor.
Caput apri defero means the boar's head I bear. Reddens laudes Domino means giving praises to the Lord. Other Latin tags welcome everyone who is at the feast and speak of serving with a song. The mix of English verses and Latin refrain is macaronic, typical of learned festive song. The burden is what the whole company sings.
That is a college legend, told about a scholar in Shotover wood who rammed a Greek text down a wild boar's throat and cried that it was Greek. Antiquaries such as William Henry Husk passed the story on as Oxford tradition. It is not documented history, and the carol does not require it. Boar's head feasts are an older and wider custom than one college anecdote.
Yes. The Queen's College sings it at the Boar's Head Gaudy in the Christmas season, as the head is carried into the hall. A soloist takes the verses and the gathering answers with the Latin. The ceremony is a living liturgy of dinner, not a reconstructed fair. Other choirs sing the same carol in concerts without the dish.
Why this song endures
The carol lasts because a great hall still wants a ceremony, and because this ceremony has words old enough to taste. Queen's College keeping the gaudy is the main reason the song is not only a footnote in a printer's fragment. Visitors who hear the soloist approach and the Latin answer understand refrain more quickly than a lecture could teach them. The greenery and the head are unforgettable props.
It also lasts in rooms that will never serve the dish. The idea of bringing the best of the feast in with a song, and of aiming that song at God, travels. Choirs that program it beside lullabies give Christmas back its communal eating. The legend, honestly told, adds laughter without being allowed to rewrite the 1521 print. A leaf from Wynkyn de Worde and a living Oxford procession are an unusually complete survival. Few carols can show both the first press and this year's dinner.