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33rd ANNUAL
BOAR’S HEAD FESTIVAL RETURNS TO BETHESDA-BY-THE-SEA,
JANUARY 9, 2011
A Perennial Holiday Favorite Returns!
The Boar's Head and
Yule Log Festival, which is The Episcopal Church of
Bethesda-by-the-Sea’s beloved recreation of an
ancient processional celebrating Epiphany returns
Sunday, January 9, 2011. With a cast of over 150
performers the festival presents a medieval London
Lord Mayor's Boar's Head banquet, complete with
Beefeaters, Pipes & Drums, Lords & Ladies, strolling
singers, jesters and dancers. The performance is a
re-enactment of the sacred songs and telling of the
Christmas and Epiphany story, carrying forth the
ligh
t of Christ's birth to all people.
WHAT:
Bethesda-by-the-Sea’s 33rd annual
Boar's Head and Yule Log Festival.
WHERE: The Episcopal Church of
Bethesda-by-the-Sea, located at 141 South Country
Road at Barton Avenue, Palm Beach
(just south of The Breakers Hotel)
WHEN:
Sunday,
January 9th, 2:30 PM and again at 4:30 PM
TICKETS: Seats are available on a first-come,
first-served basis. A suggested donation of $15 will
be collected at the door
INFO: www.bbts.org
or call 561-655-4555 extension 50.
The History of the Boar’s Head Festival:
An ancient legend serves as the basis
for this Festival: an Oxford University student,
while strolling in the forest reading the works of
Aristotle, was charged by a wild and raging boar.
The student, quick thinking, thrust his volume of
Aristotle into the throat of the boar, putting an
end to this deadly threat.
After the telling of this tale, the
head of the boar was borne into a feast at Oxford.
The celebration for the student's life came to
represent the overcoming of brute force with reason.
When the Church adapted the Festival, it gained a
new, profoundly Christian significance: the boar's
head, symbolic representation of evil, is overcome
by good through the teachings of Christ (symbolized
by light). Thus, Christ becomes the snare for evil.
The Festival we know today originated
at Queen's College, Oxford, England in 1340. By 1607
an expansive ceremony was in use at St. John's
College, Cambridge, England. The boar's head was
decorated with flags and greenery sprigs to be
carried in state to the strains of the Boar's Head
carol. The Festival included lords, ladies, knights,
historical characters, cooks, hunters, pages, Yule
log, plum pudding and mince pie. Eventually, Good
King Wenceslas, shepherds and wise men were added to
tell the Nativity story. Persecuted French Huguenot
Protestants who had learned this custom while exiled
in England brought this ceremony to colonial America
near Troy, New York. In 1888 a descendent
established this ceremony at the Hoosac Episcopal
School. Here Rev. Burroughs first saw it. He brought
it to Cincinnati in 1939 and gave it a church
setting. From a light and mellow celebration, it has
evolved to a profoundly moving experience, for
participants and spectators alike.
I
#1 Mark and Harrison Ashley
#2 Beau and Wilder Breckenridge
#3 Beefeaters at Bethesda-By-The-Sea
#4 Charlie Lorentzen and William Roberts |