The colorful ceremony of the Boar's Head has been part of a dinner celebration at Christmas since the Middle Ages in England.  Its true origin is not known.  Some think it had its roots in pagan times when the boar was served at Roman feasts.  Others think that the custom probably goes back to the Norse practice of sacrificing a boar at Yuletide in honor of the god Freyr. 

     The Boar's Head procession was first celebrated in 1340 at Queens College in Oxford University.  There is a colorful story of its origin that tells of a student at the college who was attacked on Christmas Day by a wild boar. All he had in his hand to use as a weapon was his copy of Aristotle, so he shoved the book down the boar's throat. Wanting to retrieve his book, the student cut off the animal's head and brought it back to the college where it was served for Christmas dinner with much pomp and ceremony.  The procession of the Boar's Head is described in one of the first published Christmas carols, the Boar's Head Carol. The festival continues at the College to this day.  

     The entertainment offered as part of these affairs has varied over the centuries, but basic to all occasions has been the Boar's Head Procession, a restaging of the Nativity story and various masques and mummer's plays commemorating English historic events.

    In American Colonial days, the ceremony of the Boar's Head and Yule Log was instituted into a Yankee tradition by the Bouton family who settled in Troy, New York.