Romance of the wild boar
QUESTION When did wild boar become extinct in Britain?
Wild boar ( Sus scrofa) were driven to extinction in Britain in the 13th century by habitat loss and over-hunting. Captive animals were held in parks from that time and would sometimes escape to live in the wild.
Boar were widespread throughout Britain following the last glaciation. There may have been up to one million during the Mesolithic period.
in Wales, a wild boar hunting season was specified in the 10th-century laws of Hywel dda, while in Scotland, the animals inspired the Gaelic place names fiadh-thorc (wild boar) and fiadh-mhuc (wild sow).
They were becoming rare by the 11th century. Under a 1087 forestry law enacted by William the Conqueror, the unlawful killing of boar was punished by blinding.
By the Middle Ages, they were confined to the Royal Forests of dean in Gloucestershire and Pickering in North Yorkshire. After beavers, they were the animals most affected by the destruction of British wildwood.
The European countries in which they survived have at least 20 per cent native woodland. The wooded area of England fell below this in Anglo-Saxon times.
Hunting royals finally saw them off. For their Christmas dinner of 1251, Henry iii’s court dined on 200 wild boar from dean and 100 from Pickering. After this, boar disappeared rapidly from the records.
The boar lived on in heraldry and romance, though, and was memorialised in art and works of literature, such as Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, a poem written in the 14th century but set in earlier medieval times.
Meanwhile, boar were kept in captivity in small numbers — Chartley Park in Staffordshire had wild boar in the 16th and 17th century. in 1617, Charles i arranged a boar hunt at Windsor.
They then disappeared from the record again until the 1980s, when diversification led to an increase in wild boar farming. due to escapes from these farms, by 1998 there were free-living wild boar in the countryside. The best- established populations are in the Weald of Kent and Sussex and the Forest of dean.
David Thomas, Chepstow, Mons.
QUESTION What is the origin of the phrase ‘best bib and tucker’?
THiS term refers to your smartest clothes. it originated literally — bibs and tuckers were women’s clothing from the 17th to late 19th centuries. A bib was a piece of cloth, usually the upper part of an apron, worn between throat and waist. A tucker was a piece of lace or linen worn in or around the top of a bodice.
The word bib probably stems from the Middle English bibben, meaning to drink, from the latin bibere, because it was worn while drinking or because it soaked up spills. in Middle English, a tukere was the person who dressed or finished cloth, hence the surname Tucker.
The expression was first recorded in 1747 in With Thoughts On The Art Of Beautifying The Face, by Mademoiselle Cochois: ‘The country-woman, who has work’d hard all the week long, minds nothing on Sundays so much as her best bib and tucker.’
The phrase came to be applied to men’s clothes. The Gentleman’s Magazine And Historical Chronicle of September 1765 states: ‘[The] lord Judge . . . is to be escorted into town by a large party of townsmen with javelins, marching on foot, two and two, drest in their best bibs and tuckers.’
Tuckers were worn until the late 19th century. Charlotte Bronte referred to them in Jane Eyre: ‘Some of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week; the rules limit them to one.’
Helen Craig, Cheltenham, Glos.
QUESTION What are the main design flaws of the human body?
OUR spines are just awful. A quadruped has an arched spine with their internal organs carried below it. When we became bipedal, we changed the orientation of the spinal column. The spine had to curve forward at the lower back and in the opposite direction at the top.
This puts inordinate pressure on the lower vertebrae, causing bouts of severe lower back pain for three quarters of adults — including me.
The knee joint is a hinge, so it can flex only in one direction. A ball and socket, like the shoulder or the femur/pelvis joint, would make much more sense.
The pelvis is far too narrow, so a child has to be born after insufficient gestation, essentially premature. it is estimated that worldwide more than 280,000 women die every year during childbirth and that figure used to be far worse.
Exposed testicles are vulnerable. Why aren’t they tucked up in the abdomen like the ovaries?
Fallopian tubes are not connected to the ovaries. This means ectopic pregnancies are inevitable and, until 1910, resulted in almost certain death.
Our retinas are backwards — the light receptors are at the back of the cell. Up to 75 per cent of people will wear glasses at some time or have other treatments for bad sight.
The trachea (airway) and oesophagus (food pipe) connect to the mouth. if you are laughing or talking while eating or have a serious bout of vomiting, the epiglottis, a small flap of tissue that stops food entering the trachea, can be slowed to the extent that you choke to death.
We can biosynthesise vitamin d, niacin and vitamin K but not vitamin C, which is essential for our metabolism. We can only obtain it from dietary sources.
The male urinary tract runs though the prostate gland, which is prone to infection and swelling. This can lead to blockages and, until recently, an agonising death from a ruptured bladder. Why doesn’t the urinary tract just go around the prostate gland?
What are wisdom teeth actually for? There are many, many more issues with the human body . . .
Angus Gafraidh, London E11.
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