Holiday Songs

[meridian_rose]

"" (Watch on YouTube)

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
Caput apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino
Laudes Domino, Laudes Domino, Laudes Domino


So how does a song like this end up as a Christmas carol? Here's some of the history about the song:
"The Boar’s Head carol is associated with a story set in the Fiftheenth century. Capcot, a scholar at Queen’s College, Oxford, was walking across Shotover Common towards Horspath village to attend Mass when he was attacked by a wild boar. Capcot grabbed the boar by the scruff of it’s neck and shoved a copy of Aristotle he had been reading into its throat. After removing its head, he stuck this on his staff and left it in the Church porch while attending mass. Afterwards the head was taken back to Queen’s college for dinner. The story is still celebrated in Oxford, with the Parish Church in Horspath having a window commemorating the event, and Queen’s College having an annual dinner in which three chefs carry a Boar’s head, decorated as in the carol by a garland of bay leaves and rosemary, on a silver plate into the hall…The Boar’s Head carol was the first carol to be published in English, the first print dating to 1521…
While the modern versions of the carol have no obvious textual link to Christmas, the original third verse did hence the link of the song to Christmas. Furthermore Christmas feasts in England during the Middle Ages often included Boar’s Heads, due in part to the open season for hunting Boar running from Christmas until Candlemas. It is thus likely that the Queen’s College story was to embellish a tradition that was popular at the time. The tradition may have origninated from the Norse custom of boar sacrifice to the godess of fertility, Freyja, at the feast of midwinter. Despite the wild boar becoming extinct in England during the seventeeth-century the tradition continued." x

This site at About Ancient History makes further mention of Freja and other deities and mythological figures such as Atalanta in relation to the carol. It gives some alternative Latin translations to the ones I give below.
Possible pagan origins, a feast, and some Christian embellishment? Sounds like a perfect carol to me!

The latin phrases are translated thus, at least by this site

Quot estis in convivio [as many as are at the feast].
Caput apri defero [I bring in the boar's head]
Reddens laudes Domino [Giving thanks to the lord]
Let us servire cantico [serve it with a song].
In Reginensis atrio [In Queen's Hall].