PALM BEACH, FL (December 27,
2012) – A Perennial Holiday Favorite returns with the Boar's Head and Yule Log
Festival at The Episcopal Church of
Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach
Sunday, January 6, 2013 with performances at 2:30 and 4:30 PM. The festival presents a medieval London
Lord Mayor's Boar's Head banquet, complete with Beefeaters, Palm Beach Pipes
& Drums, Lords & Ladies, strolling singers, instrumentalists, sprites,
shepards, huntsmen, pages, jesters,
dancers, and parishioners.
With over 160 cast members, the performance is a re-enactment of the
sacred songs and telling of the Christmas and Epiphany story, carrying forth
the light of Christ's birth to all people.
An epiphany is a
revelation and a climax of the Advent/Christmas Season. The Twelve Days of Christmas
are usually counted from the evening of December 25th until the morning of
January 6th, which is the Twelfth Day. Western churches celebrate the Epiphany season
as it marks the moment when the Three Kings arrived in Bethlehem to deliver gifts
to Christ, therefore revealing to the world that he was the Lord. The Boar’s
Head is a mixture of old English and Christian tradition where favorite
Christmas Carols, fantastic costumes and performances celebrate the joy of the
holiday season and the Twelve Days of Christmas.
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.
WHAT: Bethesda-by-the-Sea’s
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 6th, 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 by calling 561-655-4554
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