The Louisville Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival will take place Wednesday through Friday, December 29-31, at St. Paul United Methodist Church in the Highlands. The annual festival, traditionally presented between Christmas and New Year’s Day, celebrates Christmas with a medieval twist.
Taking its name from the prize meal served to guests at lavish Roman feasts, the boar’s head transformed from a Norman symbol of menace and evil to the triumph of Christ over that same evil with Jesus’ birth. Boar’s head festivals have gone on in England since the 14th century, eventually making the leap to the States in 1888.
The festivities, which include medieval-flavored Christmas music, costume, drama and dance, alternately begin with a candlelit dinner including hot wassail beverages and end with a church service complete with a brass fanfare, medieval carolers and the lighting of the Yule log. King Wenceslas and the Wise Men of carol fame also make an appearance.
St. Paul’s is located at 2000 Douglass Boulevard, across from the Douglass Loop. Admission to the festival (5:00 and 8:00 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and at 6:30 on Friday) is free but tickets for dinner (6:30 on Wednesday and Thursday and 5:00 on Friday) are required and are $19.75 each. For tickets or more information, call the Boar’s Head ticket office at 459-1595 ext 33.
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Photo: Courtesy St. Paul UMC
