Mallard Song

The Mallard Song is an ancient tradition of All Souls' College, Oxford. It is sung every year at the Bursar's Dinner in March and the college's Gaudy in November and also sung in a separate special ceremony once a century.

The ceremony

In the ceremony, Fellows parade around the college with flaming torches, led by a "Lord Mallard" who is carried in a chair, in search of a giant mallard that supposedly flew out of the foundations of the college when it was being built in 1437. The procession is led by an individual carrying a duck — originally dead, now just wooden — tied to the end of a vertical pole. The ceremony was last held in 2001, with Martin Litchfield West acting as Lord Mallard. His predecessor as Lord Mallard was Cosmo Lang, who presided over the centenary ceremony in 1901.[1][2][3]

The song

The words of the song are as follows:

The Griffine, Bustard, Turkey & Capon
Lett other hungry Mortalls gape on
And on theire bones with Stomacks fall hard,
But lett All Souls' Men have ye Mallard.
CHORUS:
Hough the bloud of King Edward,
By ye bloud of King Edward,
It was a swapping, swapping mallard!
Some storys strange are told I trow
By Baker, Holinshead & Stow
Of Cocks & Bulls, & other queire things
That happen'd in ye Reignes of theire Kings.
CHORUS
The Romans once admir'd a gander
More than they did theire best Commander,
Because hee saved, if some don't foolle us,
The place named from ye Scull of Tolus.
CHORUS
The Poets fain'd Jove turn'd a Swan,
But lett them prove it if they can.
To mak't appeare it's not att all hard:
Hee was a swapping, swapping mallard.
CHORUS
Hee was swapping all from bill to eye,
Hee was swapping all from wing to thigh;
His swapping tool of generation
Oute swapped all ye wingged Nation.
CHORUS
Then lett us drink and dance a Galliard
in ye Remembrance of ye Mallard,
And as ye Mallard doth in Poole,
Let's dabble, dive & duck in Boule.
CHORUS

Folk song

A folksong (Roud 1517) found in southern England is an accumulative song about the body of the mallard.[4][5]

References

  1. ^ Gregoriadis, Linus; O'Neill, Sean (15 January 2001). "Mallard Leads Oxford Fellows a Merry Dance". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
  2. ^ MacLeod, Donald (12 January 2001). "Oxford Dons Go Quackers". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 April 2011.
  3. ^ Horan, David (1999). Oxford: A Cultural and Literary Companion. Oxford: Signal Books Limited. pp. 55–56. ISBN 9781902669052.
  4. ^ Palmer, Roy (1979). Everyman's Book of English Country Songs. London: J. M. Dent
  5. ^ Summers, Keith (6 May 2009). "The mallard". Keith Summers English Folk Music Collection. British Library. Retrieved 10 July 2018.