WILD BOAR

24th February 2024

Photo Credit: Slavisa Tomanovic (Getty Images), CANVA

QUOTATION

Were it not better

Because that I am more than common tall,

That I did suit me all points like a man?

A gallant curtal-ax upon my thigh,

A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heart

Lie there what hidden woman’s fear they will,

We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside -

As many other mannish cowards have

That do outface it with their semblances.

ROSALIND: As You Like It, Act 1, Scene 3

WILD BOAR (Sus scrofa)

Boars appear in many guises in Shakespeare. Rosalind tries to disguise herself as a man by carrying a weapon that denotes the highest form of courage, a ‘boar-spear'. Boars were and are considered highly dangerous animals to hunt and can cause great damage or kill with their tusks. The Boar was also the symbol of Richard III and their is much symbolism and metaphor around the Boar connected with him. Adonis is killed by the Boar, in the poem Venus and Adonis, and Falstaff is described as an old Boar in Henry IV Part 2.

Boars became extinct in Britain at some point in the past few hundred years. Phipson (1883) says that ‘the Boar, once the most abundant of British animals, had been gradually driven by the cultivation of forest lands into remote regions of England’. She also quotes examples of James VI and I hunting boar in the early 17th century.

There are wild Boars again in Britain but they are escapees or have been released. There are a range of views, positive and negative, on the reintroduction of Wild Boar in Britain.

More Information

Folger Shakespeare Library: Search Shakespeare’s Works

Phipson, E, 1883 Animal Lore of Shakespeare’s Time. Lost Library reprint, Glastonbury, U.K.

Scottish Wildlife Trust: Wild Boar

Woodland Trust: Wild Boar