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 soirée. 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.


And so here it is ... represented on our pages ... a Celtic boar that is no bore. Uh oh. Sorry folks. Couldn't help myself.