the feast--a mighty boar's head, decorated with laurel and rosemary,
whose approach was often heralded with trumpets as the king of the
feast; then came a peacock, stuffed with spices and sweet herbs, and
adorned with its gay feathers, and then followed a goodly company of
geese, capons, sirloins of beef, pheasants, mince-pies, and
plum-porridge. A carol was often sung when the boar's head was
brought in; here is one from the collection of Wynkyn de Worde:

Caput Apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino,
The Boar's Head in hand bring I
With garlands gay and rosemary;
I pray you all sing merrily
Qui estis in convivio.

The Boar's Head, I understand,
Is the chief service in this land;
Look wherever it be fande:
Servile cum cantico.

Be glad, lords, both more and lasse,
For this hath ordained our stewárd
To cheer you all this Christmasse,
The Boar's Head with mustárd.[18]

Neither were the ale and wassail-bowl forgotten, and they circulated
sometimes too often, I fear, and laid the seeds of gout and other
evils, from which other generations suffer. But when the prodigious
appetites of the company had been appeased, the maskers and mummers
entered the hall and performed strange antics and a curious play,