The Devilstone Chronicles

It was Caxton who introduced printing to England but this former diplomat and merchant needed a trained printer to help him operate the press he’d imported from the Low Countries. He therefore brought Wynkyn de Worde to Westminster and it was this German immigrant who turned Caxton’s small business serving the aristocracy into a thriving commercial concern that exploited the growing purchasing power of England’s burgeoning middle class.

Following Caxton’s death, and a lengthy court case, de Worde gained control of his late employer’s business and moved his press from Westminster to a new site in Fleet Street so as to be closer to London’s increasing number of doctors and lawyers. To cater tothese professional people, de Worde began publishing law books, books on household management and even books for children. He also printed the first English books with Hebrew and Arabic characters and made much greater use of woodcut illustrations than Caxton.

Over the next thirty years, de Worde published more than 400 different titles and one of his best sellers was The Christmas Carolles. Unfortunately, no complete copy of this book has survived and we only know of its existence thanks to a single leaf preserved in Oxford University’s Bodleian Library. The verso (left hand side) of this page contains the colophon (end title) which declares: “Thus endeth the Christmass carolles newely enprinted at Londo in the flete strete at the sygne of the sonne by Wynkyn de Worde. The yere of our lorde. M.D. xxi.” but the recto (right hand side) preserves two medieval carols.

The first of these, entitled “A caroll of huntynge”, describes a huntsman’s meeting with a hart (deer) which in Medieval Christianity represented mankind’s search for God:

Underneath a tree I did me set,
And with a great hart anon I met,
I bade let slip, and said hey go bet,
With hey go bet, hey go bet how,
We shall have sport and game enow... [full text below]

By contrast, the second carol, entitled “A caroll bringyng in the bores heed”, has its origins in the pre-Christian tradition of sacrificing a pig at Midwinter.

The boar’s head in hand bear I,
Bedeck'd with bays and rosemary.
I pray you, my masters, be merry
As you all feast so heartily
CHORUS : Lo, behold the head I bring, Giving praise to God we sing... [full text below]

The ceremony of the boar’s head is one of those pagan rituals absorbed by Christianity as it expanded beyond its Mediterranean heartlands. To the Nordic peoples beyond the Rhine, the wild boar was sacred to the fertility god Freyr and it was these tribes’ Midwinter tradition to sacrifice the best pig in the village to this god to ensure the New Year would be fruitful. After Scandinavia had been converted to Christianity, Freyr became identified with St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and the sacrifice of a boar was transformed into the ceremonial parade of a boar’s head on St Stephen’s Day (December 26th).

Nowadays the boar’s head has been replaced by the Christmas ham, which is still served in many homes throughout Scandinavia (especially Sweden) and the English speaking world on Boxing Day. Though few families sing “The boar’s head in hand bear I” whilst feasting on their festive ham, this ancient carol and the parade of a boars head is still performed in The Queen’s College Oxford on the Saturday before Christmas.

According to legend, this version of the ritual commemorates the time long ago when a Queen’s student walking to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve saved himself from a ferocious wild boar by ramming his philosophy book down the poor animal’s throat! Later that day, it being Christmas Day, the boar's head, garnished with garlands of rosemary, was carried into the college dining room accompanied by carollers singing the same carol that appears in Wynkyn de Worde’s book.

Though pedants may argue that wild boars in England were hunted to extinction long before The Queen’s College was founded in 1341, we should never let the truth get in the way of a good Christmas carol!