Fertility. Prosperity. Gluttony. Ignorance. And all that is unclean.
This was the wild boar. He was a natural war symbol. He was respected
and feared and hunted down by all early societies. It Celtic Britain
the boar was regarded as the Devil himself. The sow was associated
with death and the underworld.
Wait. There’s more. I know there isn’t one amongst you that wouldn’t
want a golden boar as an elegant brooch to wear at the next soir=ee.
In Tibetan Buddhism… Vajtavarahi… The Queen of Heaven… is the
Diamond or Adamantine Sow. This–my friends–is an animal worth
cultivating… financially speaking
Zeus–you do know who he is–was said to have been suckled by a
sow… and he didn’t do so badly. Suck on a boar’s teet… become a
God I always say. On the other hand… in ancient Egypt… touching a
boar was supposed to have caused leprosy. And on the other hand
again… roast pork (read boar) was eaten in Valhalla. In other world
hostels boars were killed… cooked… eaten … and were then
magically reborn and killed and eaten again.
On this last item… I tend to think that if we incorporated this
methodology into our larder stuffing requirement we would find
ourselves saving a great deal of money on our weekly food shopping
needs. I don’t think this would help the supermarket economies
much… but then so what? Did I ever tell you about the time I was in
a supermarket and they had five razor blades for $6.00 and the
economy pack of ten razor blades for $13.00. What the hell was that?
Sucking in the suckers? Don’t walk. Run to your nearest supplier…
and buy an eternally regenerative boar and you’ll never have to shop
for meat again… let the supermarkets be damned.
Mythologically speaking… supernatural boars abound. In Celtic
lore… Twrch Trwyth --pronounce that and win a secret prize–was an
evil king that was transformed into an giant boar. In the Odyssey…
Circe transforms Odysseus’s men into pigs (read boars). It is also a
well-known fact by those who specialize in well- known facts that
boars were used as decoys in order to catch a demon. The conundrum
here is this: After you’ve caught your demon… what are you going to
do with him… or her?
I leave you with this last above puzzlement… and introduce you to a
bronze boar figurine-- which I have turned into a golden brooch in
order to maintain good standing within the jewelry community–which
stems from Hounslow, Middlesex, first century B.C. to first century
A.D. It was the cult animal par excellence of the Celts.
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits…may I
direct you to my home page at http://www.tyler-adam.com where you
will scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that
says Current Tidbits. Click it… and you will see represented on our
pages… a Celtic boar that is no bore. Uh oh. Sorry. Couldn’t help
myself.
And there ya have it. That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark