boar

boar [OE bār]. The male wild pig, species Sus scrofa, has played a prominent role in the Celtic imagination for more than two millennia. The Celtic languages generally denote the wild boar by a different word from that meaning the domesticated pig. ‘Boar’ is torc in Old and Modern Irish as well as in Scottish Gaelic; baedd gwyllt in Welsh; bāth in Cornish. Only in Breton, hoc'h-gouez, and Manx, collagh muc, is it ‘wild pig’. The boar was found all over Europe in early times and was, along with the bear, the most ferocious and aggressive animal a person was likely to encounter. From the time of Hallstatt onwards, the boar was a favourite, if not the favourite, Celtic cult animal. It was represented on cult objects and coins from Central Europe to northern Britain, where the god Vitiris was portrayed with a boar. Burials from the La Tène period attest to the champion's portion of a joint of pork, mentioned both by classical commentators and Irish heroic narratives. On the Gundestrup cauldron, a boar attends Cernunnos and a large boar crest adorns the helmet of a horseman in a military procession. A Gaulish god Moccus, found at Longres, France, and equated by the Romans with Mercury, epitomized the power of the boar. Arduinna was the Romano-Gaulish boar-goddess of the Ardennes Forest. A northern British tribe in Roman times called themselves the Orci [people of the boar]. The boar was the best animal to hunt, admired both for its physical strength and for its heroic defence when cornered. It was thought to have great sexual power, and its food was fit for heroes. In Gaelic Scotland the boar's skin was thought an appropriate dress for a warrior, and a boar's head appears in the crest of the Clan MacKinnon.

Although the boar has been extinct in Ireland since the 12th century, it appears often in Irish narrative. The hermit Marbán has a pet white boar. Tuan mac Cairill was transformed into a boar, among other things. Orc Triath was an otherworldly boar or pig in Irish tradition; Torc Triath was the king of the boars in the pseudo-history Lebor Gabála [Book of Invasions]. Torc Forbartach was a boar cited often in Fenian stories, but he is kept separate from another one who killed Diarmait Ua Duibne at any of several locations, most popularly Ben Bulben (or Ben Gulban, etc.) in Sligo. Diarmait's father Donn Ua Duibne had killed a bastard son who was transformed into this boar.

Boars are cult heroes in some Welsh stories. Twrch Trwyth is the otherworldly boar or pig of Welsh tradition. His Breton counterpart is Tourtain. In Manawydan, the third branch of the Mabinogi, a gleaming white boar leads Pryderi into an enclosure, where he cannot escape. In Math, the fourth branch, Gwydion takes the form of a boar and his brother Gilfaethwy a sow in order to produce Hychdwn Hir. See also FRIUCH [Ir., boar bristles]; YSGITHRWYN PEN BEIDD; SCÉLA MUCCE MEIC DA THÓ [The Story of Mac Da Thó's Pig].