The central heathen rite of sacrifice has also left its abundant traces upon winter custom. Bede records the significant name of _blôt-monath_, given to November by the still unconverted Anglo-Saxons[898]. The tradition of solemn slaughter hangs around both Martinmas and Christmas. ‘Martlemas beef’ in England, St. Martin’s swine, hens, and geese in Germany, mark the former day[899]. At Christmas the outstanding victim seems to be the boar. _Caput apri defero: reddens laudem Domino_, sings the taberdar at Queen’s College, Oxford, as the manciple bears in the boar’s head to the Christmas banquet. So it was sung in many another mediaeval and Elizabethan hall[900], while the gentlemen of the Inner Temple broke their Christmas fast on ‘brawn, mustard, and malmsey[901],’ and in the far-off Orkneys each householder of Sandwick must slay his sow on St. Ignace’s or ‘Sow’ day, December 17[902]. The older mythologists, with the fear of solstices before their eyes, are accustomed to connect the Christmas boar with the light-god, Freyr[903]. If the cult of any one divinity is alone concerned, the analogous use of the pig in the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter would make the earth-goddess a more probable guess[904]. A few more recondite customs associated with particular winter anniversaries may be briefly named. St. Thomas’s day is at Wokingham the day for bull-baiting[905]. On St. Stephen’s day, both in England and Germany, horses are let blood[906]. On or about Christmas, boys are accustomed to set on foot a hunt of victims not ordinarily destined to such a fate[907]; owls and squirrels, and especially wrens, the last, be it noted, creatures which at other times of the year a taboo protects. The wren-hunt is found on various dates in France, England, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, and is carried out with various curious rituals. Often the body is borne in a _quête_, and in the Isle of Man the _quêteurs_ give a feather as an amulet in return for hospitality. There are other examples of winter _quêtes_, in which the representation of a sacrificial victim is carried round[908]. ‘Hoodening’ in Kent and other parts of England is accompanied by a horse’s head or hobby-horse[909]. The Welsh ‘Mari Lwyd’ is a similar feature[910], while at Kingscote, in Gloucestershire, the wassailers drink to a bull’s head called ‘the Broad[911].’