There are a Wild Boar in These Woods

Cover Photo: “A particularly savage wild boar (Sus scrofa) fighting with another over the females behind. Engraving” (Wikimedia Commons 2024)

This season, Augusta’s Lift Your Voice choir has been working on a diverse repertoire of songs that will be performed at our upcoming concert on December 14th at The Arts Center. One of the songs that stuck out the most to me was Wild Boar, a haunting tale of a man fighting a murderous wild boar in the woods. Our choir director, Emily Miller, got the tune from Jesse Milnes, who learned it from Gerry Milnes and Michael Kline, who learned it from Currence Hammonds. The tune has a long, complicated legacy, as most folk ballads do. As we prepare for the concert, I wanted to dive into the history behind Wild Boar and understand why the story had such a primal hold over me. If you’re a member of our choir or a curious reader who wandered upon this post, I invite you to join me in learning about the thousand-year-old tale of a wild boar in the woods and the men who fight it. 

In Appalachia alone there are dozens of different versions of Wild Boar, including Bangum and The Boar, Bangum and The Wild Boar, The Wild Hog, etc. with varying, but similar lyrics. The natural evolution of folk songs causes them to change as the story passes from mouth to mouth. Even the nonsense phrases like dilodee and get away, coddle down, quanzi-o are different in almost every version I’ve come across. Some sources speculate the dilodee is mimicking a trumpet or horn noise, but the other words at the end of each verse seem to have turned into complete nonsense over the years. It’s possible our own coddle down, quanzi-o comes from the use of this song as a child’s lullaby. Though I think it’s funny that a song about a violent boar being hunted is considered a calming night time song to sing to a child. That being said, each version of Wild Boar differs from person to person, but keeps the same theme.The Wild Boar I’m singing with the Lift Your Voice Choir even looks different from the Wild Boar learned from Michael Kline that is sung by another person in Asheville, North Carolina, Saro Lynch. Her version of the song and research on the song can be found at this link: https://youtu.be/EUPlkweBwRg?si=-G0aw3qJMFimKCe9. The Old Bangum and Wild Boar variants can be found across the United States. I’ve put the Lift Your Voice version of Wild Boar next to a version titled Old Bangum collected in 1963 from Donna Everett in Huntsville, Arkansas, so you can see an example of how the lyrics vary but the story remains similar:

Hunting The Original Wild Boar

The Calydonian Boar Hunt Tapestry (Augusta Stylianou 2024).

So, now that I’ve pointed out the changing nature of this ballad, you might be wondering, where did this strange, haunting tune originate? Was there really a dangerous boar living in the Appalachian mountains waiting to suck the blood of a thousand men? My hunt for this truth led me down a deep, deep rabbit hole (one I could honestly get lost in for weeks if I kept researching). The original wild boar folktale dates back almost 1,000 years and the boar there was over 3,000 miles from West Virginia. Saro Lynch traced the Wild Boar legend back to an 1100’s Welsh legend titled Culwch and Olwen. In the story, Culwch is trying to win the hand of a giant’s daughter. The giant, Ysbaddaden, refuses to allow his daughter to marry until Culwch completes “39 impossible tasks. One of those tasks is to retrieve the comb, razor, and shears that sit between the ears of the boar Twrch trwyth. And Twrch Trwyth isn’t your average giant boar. He was once a king but God turned him into a boar as punishment for his sins. Twrch Trwyth’s bristles are poisonous and he has 7 deadly piglets as companions.” (Lynch 2020). In a version published by California State University, Culwch and the giant Ysbaddaden’s exchange goes something like this:

Culwch: “‘It is easy for me to get that, though thou think it is not easy.’”

The Giant Ysbaddaden: “Though thou get that, there is that thou wilt not get. I must needs wash my head and shave my beard. The tusk of [Twrch Trwyth] Chief Boar I must have, wherewith to shave myself. I shall be none the better for that unless it be plucked from his head while alive.” (CSU: 97). 

Cover art for Culwch and Olwen (Internet Archive 1988).

Culwch, with the help of the famous King Arthur and others defeats the boar and his piglets, allowing Culwch to win Olwen’s hand and killing her father Ysbaddaden. This Welsh legend seems to be the inspiration for several other ballads and romances with the theme of a wild boar and the hero that kills it. 

Sir Eglamour

Medieval woodcut showing Sir Eglamour of Artois (Alamy 2024)

Sir Eglamour is a French romance from around 1350 that continues the wild boar theme. “This story features a knight, Sir Eglamour, who is hunting an enormous boar who is killing Christian men. Like Culwch, Sir Eglamour is in love with the daughter of a lord. And that lord has tried to waylay their relationship by making Eglamour complete several impossible tasks. Eglamour locates the boar by following the bodies of dead men strewn across the ground. Which might be the origin of the line in our song, he spied the bones of a thousand men.” (Lynch 2020). Sir Eglamour copies themes from Culwch and Olwen, hypothetically tying the two tales to the same idea. The giant Ysbaddaden in the Welsh legend is replaced by an Earl in the French romance, but the deadly boar and the fight for the hand of a fair maiden remains. Although, Sir Eglamour does kill a “gyant” in his story as well. Here is a small section of Sir Eglamour that mentions the boar:

Sir Lionel and his Boar

It is clear to see the ties between Culwch and Sir Elgamour, but our story is not done there. Sir Eglamour influenced other stories, eventually leading to the English ballad Sir Lionel. “Various English and Scottish versions of the ballad Sir Lionel feature a knight who comes across a woman who is hiding in the woods from a giant boar. In order to save the lady, the knight kills the boar. Unfortunately the boar turns out to be the pet of a giant. Who is not very happy that his boar has been killed. Sir Lionel fights the giant and defeats him.” (Lynch 2020).  There is not a set date for when Sir Lionel appeared, but it appears to be from the late medieval period. Sir Lionel is also where we could get the line “he blew it east, then west, then south,” as can be seen here:

‘O what shall I do this wild boar to see?’

  ‘O thee blow a blast, and he’ll come unto thee.’

       Refrain: As thou beest, etc.

[Then he put his horn unto his mouth],

  Then he blowd a blast full north, east, west and south.

       Refrain: As he was, etc.

And the wild boar heard him full into his den;

  Then he made the best of his speed unto him.

(sacred-texts 2024)

The Sir Lionel ballad was collected in the Child Ballads, a popular assortment of ballads compiled in 1860 by Frances James Child. These ballads became a popular source of older folktales and could be the source from which Old Bangum and the Boar was born. 

Returning to Bangum

Wild Boar Poster (Poster Museum 2024).

There is no true point where Culwch and Olwen, Sir Eglamour of Artois, or Sir Lionel turned into the Wild Boar ballad heard in Appalachia today. We can speculate and draw an insane corkboard of red strings together, but, like many good folk ballads, it has no clear origin or creator. It is a product of centuries of mutation and children listening to a scary tale of a boar and the brave man who kills it. Some experts theorize that the reason the Bangum tale shifted from a romance or a longer legend was due to the terror that new settlers in Appalachia had. “‘Old Bangum’…is a simple, somewhat fantastic depiction of the British settlers’ initial terror toward Appalachia’s dense forests. The hero of this new ballad is a mountain man, Old Bangum, who goes ‘out a-hunting one day’ when a ‘wild boar’ rushes toward him. Old World attitudes toward the natural world are clearly evident in this ballad, for their lingering influence affects Old Bangum’s responses to his new environment – magnifying the proportions of everything he sees; furthermore, the ballad does not attempt to correctly identify the species of the beast that terrorized him. If the ballad is based in fact, then the ‘wild boar’ must have been a feral hog – a domesticated pig ‘gone wild’ – since European wild boar were not introduced to the Southern Appalachians until the twentieth century.” (Olson 1992:62).

It is unclear when the folk ballad traveled from Europe to America or where it was first sang in the Appalachian region. We also don’t know where the name Bangum came from. There was a character in Culwch and Olwen name Banw that sounds a bit like Bangum, though this character was killed by one of the boar’s piglets and is only mentioned in passing. Banw also wasn’t passed down through Sir Elgamour or Sir Lionel, so where Bangum comes from will remain a mystery. My personal theory is that Bangum is the sound of a gun, much like the one used to shoot the boar, so it could be a play on the sound of the name Bangum. Bangum may be a new, confused hero in this story, but the themes remain the same. “At its core, this story is about human’s primal fear of the wild. The image of a wild hog in the woods who eats our meat and sucks our blood might not trigger that same clench in the stomach as it did for listeners several hundred years ago. But still, the idea of facing an angry predator is exhilarating and terrifying.” (Lynch 2020). As I ended my research on Wild Boar, I came away with awe and respect for how old the song and the story truly is. How crazy is it that a 1,000 year old story traveled across Wales, France, England, and eventually into Appalachia where it was given different names and characters? And yet we can all share in the terror of the boar and the relief when our hero defeats it. Next time you sing or listen to Wild Boar, or any folk ballad for that matter, I hope you think about all of the factors that had to converge to bring the song to our mouths and ears in 2024. With that being said, I’ve attached a video here of the Lift Your Voice choir singing Wild Boar! I hope you enjoy and make sure to watch Wild Boar and our other songs live on Saturday, December 14th. Our concert starts at 7pm at The Arts Center in Elkins, WV!

Madeline Ricks is an AmeriCorps member with the Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area serving at Augusta. She is using her year of service to continue the mission of digitizing Augusta’s large archive, as well as adding to the collection through new recordings and blog posts about Augusta happenings and stories of West Virginia culture. While she was born in Georgia, raised in both Indiana and Montana, and has traveled around the world, she has a special place in her heart for West Virginia, as her mother’s side of the family still lives in Kanawha County. She received her BA in English Literature and a minor in Italian Studies from Gonzaga University and recently finished a Master of Research in Social Anthropology from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She hopes to leave a lasting, positive impact on the organization and community during her short time at Augusta.

Works Cited

Alamy. 2024. Medieval Woodcut showing Sir Elgamour of Artois. Available on-line: (alamy.com/stock-photo-medieval-woodcut-showing-sir-eglamour-of-artois-a-middle-english-verse-36874544.html, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024).

Augusta Stylianou. 2024. The Calydonian Boar Hunt Tapestry by Peter Paul Rubens. Available on-line: (augusta-stylianou.pixels.com/featured/the-calydonian-boar-hunt-peter-paul-rubens.html?product=tapestry, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024)

California State University, Bakersfield. 2024. Culwch and Olwen. Available on-line: (csub.edu/~cmacquarrie/isle_of_man/documents/texts/culhwch.pdf, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024).

Hudson, H. 2006. Sir Eglamour of Artois. Available on-line: (d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/hudson-sir-eglamour-of-artois, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024).

Internet Archive. 1988. Culwch ac Olwen, Available on-line: (archive.org/details/culhwchacolwen0000gwyn, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024).

Lynch, S. 2020. Songs that Speak Ep. 1: Boar Lore!. Available on-line: (youtu.be/EUPlkweBwRg?si=Ib6dTWRuejuas5pg, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024)

Missouri State. 2024. Old Bangum, Available on-line: (maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=1499, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024)

Olson, T. 1992. Agricultural Themes in Appalachian Folk Songs: “The Farmer is the Man Who Feeds Them All”, Journal of the Appalachian Studies Association, Vol. 4, pp. 59-68.

Poster Museum. 2024. Wild Boar Poster, Available on-line: (postermuseum.com/products/tyty13, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024).

Sacred-Texts. 2024. 18A: Sir Lionel. Available on-line: (sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch018.htm, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024).

Wikimedia Commons. 2024. File:A particularly savage wild boar (Sus scrofa) fighting with a Wellcome V0021488.jpg, Available on-line: (commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_particularly_savage_wild_boar_%28Sus_scrofa%29_fighting_with_a_Wellcome_V0021488.jpg, Accessed Dec. 10, 2024).