Boar's Head Madrigal Dinner in Surrey

Photo: Page with candle guides diners to feasting room.

The host bids the diners enter the banqueting hall, and the Lyric Singers greet their arrival with a rousing rendition of The Gloucestershire Wassail. At the door, each guest is given a cup of wassail, warmed apple cider with cinnamon, and servers come round to refill the cups.

Once the guests are settled, a ceremonial lighting of the Christ Candle follows. Then two bearers parade the boar's head round the room for all to see.

Beneath the medieval wall banner, the Lyric Singers raise their voices in song, along with featured guests, both men and children.

Dinner is served in courses, with songs between. The menu begins with soup and bread, then salad is served. The main course is roast pork with gravy and traditional winter vegetables.

The audience is asked to join in the singing of familiar carols. Before dessert is brought out, an attendant in medieval garb parades the flaming pudding through the banqueting hall.

Below: Servers rest after their labours.

The feast winds down as young pages come round to collect donations for the food bank, and feasters remember others who may be hungry and in need.

The sated revellers sing along to Hark the Herald Angels Sing, the choir sings We Wish You a Merry Christmas and banqueters are trumpeted from the hall.

This event, "The Boar's Head Dinner, A Medieval Madrigal Feast of  Food and Song," was presented by Bethany-Newton United Church and Lyric Singers. Those who attended hope the tradition will continue.

Boar's head dinners date back to the middle ages and possibly earlier, to pagan times. Or the tradition of the Boar's Head dinner originated at Queen's College Oxford, says an apocryphal story of a student who encountered a wild boar while reading Aristotle in the forest.

When the boar attacked, the quick-thinking reader defended himself by thrusting the volume into the mouth of the charging animal, who promptly choked on it. More likely a clever Oxonian joke than a real event, this tale has nevertheless survived to be told at the annual Boar's Head dinner at Queen's College.