Boar’s Head. [The Christmas dish.]

Freyr, the Seandinavian god of peace and plenty, used to ride on the boar Gullinbursti; his festival was held at Yuletide (winter solstice), when a boar was sacrificed to his honour.

The Boar’s Head. This tavern, made immortal by Shakespeare, used to stand in Eastcheap, on the site of the present statue of William IV. It was the cognisance of the Gordons, the progenitor of which clan slew, in the forest of Huntley, a wild boar, the terror of all the Merse (1093).

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.