THE SCENE: No better way to earn glory than to kill a wild boar that has already killed dozens of knights.
THE TEXT: There was a wild boar in the district. Everyone was frightened of it. No animal had taken so many lives, men and women, and he didn’t care if ten knights were after him. He didn’t give a bean! Two great tusks protruded from his mouth, each of them over five inches in circumference, his hide was impenetrable and his bristles were long and coarse. He was such a terrifying sight that no man dared to approach him, let alone threaten him.
Bevis lay in bed one night and conceived the idea of demonstrating his strength and valour against this boar, by himself, alone. So the next morning, when it was light and everybody was up and about, Bevis saddled his hunter, intending to hunt that boar. He strapped on a good sword, carried a spear, hung a shield by his side and set off towards the forest.
The princess saw him leaving and thought, as always, that he looked magnificent. ‘May I never have possessions or any joy at all unless I can kiss him at least once,’ she said to herself with passion. ‘It will be a lucky lady indeed who has him to play with in bed!’
Bevis arrived at the forest and quickly tied his horse to a thorn tree and hung his shield around his neck. Then he blew a good blast on his horn, three loud phrases one after the other, so that the boar would know he was there. When he came to the boar’s den, he could see the bones of dead men that the boar had killed in the forest and dragged back to eat, and to drink their blood.
‘Come out, you cursed soul, come out quickly and fight!’ Bevis cried.
As soon as the boar saw Bevis, its bristles stood on end. It looked at him with piercing eyes as though imagining how pleasant it might be to swallow him whole, then opened its mouth and gave out an almighty snarl. Bevis ran at the beast with his spear levelled, but it stood its ground against the assault and the spear broke into pieces against the boar’s hide, which was as hard as flint. Bevis’s spear was now useless, so he drew his sword and attacked the animal with that. The boar counterattacked in response, and so it went on. The battle lasted for a long while – until evensong I believe. Bevis became so weary that his strength started to fail and he expected to be killed at any moment. The boar was growing just as tired, however, and suddenly turned and retreated.
While the boar was resting, Bevis made a prayer to God and to his mother Mary: ‘May one of us be killed before this battle ends!’
The boar suddenly rushed into a fresh attack with all its might, foaming excessively at the mouth, its bristles standing on end. Bevis, on this occasion, and through the grace and excellence of God, managed to slice away half of each of the boar’s tusks with a single swipe of his sword. The tip of his sword cut through the boar’s skull and exposed a hand’s breath of the brain underneath. At this, the boar gave out such a cry that the sound was heard for miles around; men heard that cry from as far away as the castle itself. The boar opened its mouth so wide that Bevis was able to thrust his sword down its throat and cut the animal’s heart in two. Bevis withdrew the sword and then cut the boar’s head off with it. He set the head onto the end of what remained of his spear and prepared to carry it back to the castle, but first he put his hunting horn to his mouth and blew the motif for a kill, so pleased was he at what he had achieved.
– Sir Bevis of Hampton, 13th Century AD
