Wild Boar

Wild Boar traces the history of the interaction between humans and wild boar, from the iconic beasts of myth and legend, such as the Calydonian Boar, to the adoption of the boar as a heraldic device – most notably by the doomed English king Richard iii – and the meticulous rules of engagement that grew up around the practice of hunting. The boar’s impact upon human bodies is a running theme in legends, stories and reports, and now that hunters are no longer armed with boar spears but with high-velocity rifles, the boars themselves have ballooned in the popular imagination, in the shape of monstrous hybrids such as ‘Hogzilla’, in keeping with their role as deadly adversary.