The or was the boar sacrificed as part of the celebration of Yule in Germanic paganism, on whose bristles solemn vows were made in some forms of a tradition known as .

Attestations Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks refers to the tradition of swearing oaths on Yule Eve by laying hands on the bristles of the boar, who was then sacrificed in the :

Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar One of the prose segments in "" adds that the oaths were sworn while drinking the toast:

Ynglinga saga In the is used for divination ()."", Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology, tr. Angela Hall, Cambridge: Brewer, 1993, repr. 2000, , p. 298.Jan de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, Volume 1, Grundriß der germanischen Philologie begründet von Hermann Paul 12/I, 2nd ed. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1956, repr. as 3rd ed. 1970, , p. 367 .

Scholarly reception The association with the Yule and with the ceremonial gives the vows great solemnity, so that they have the force of oaths. This becomes a recurring topos in later sagas,de Vries, p. 504. although we have only these two saga mentions attesting to the custom of making vows on the sacrificial animal.Peter Habbe, Att se och tänka med ritual: kontrakterande ritualer i de isländska släktsagorna, Vägar till Midgård 7, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2005, , p. 43 .

The choice of a boar indicates a connection with Freyr,Hannon, W. B. “Christmas and Its Folk-Lore.” The Irish Monthly, vol. 52, no. 607, 1924, pp. 20–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20517297. Accessed 2 Jan. 2024. whose mount is the gold-bristled boar ,Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand points to a prohibition in the Salic law that suggests the Franks sacrificed only the generative organs of the boar to the fertility god Freyr, reserving the rest for the feast: "", in , ed. Hagen Keller and Nikolaus Staubach, , Berlin: De Gruyter, 1994, , pp. 249–62, pp. 256–57 . and the continuing Swedish tradition of eating pig-shaped cakes at Christmas recalls the early custom.Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, tr. James Steven Stallybrass, Volume 1, London: Bell, 1882, p. 51.H. F. Feilberg, Jul, volume 2, Copenhagen: Schuboth, 1904, pp. 313–14 .Helge Rosén, "Freykult och Djurkult", Fornvännen 1913, pp. 213–44, pp. 214–15, pdf . According to Olaus Verelius's notes in his 1672 edition of , part of this would then be saved for mixing with the seed-corn and giving to the plough-horses and ploughmen at spring planting.Grimm, Volume 3, 1883, p. 1240. As Jacob Grimm pointed out, the serving of a boar's head at banquets and particularly at The Queen's College, Oxford, may also be a reminiscence of the Yule boar-.Grimm, Volume 1, p. 215; Volume 4, 1883, p. 1355.Rosén, p. 214.Ernst Anton Quitzmann, Die heidnische Religion der Baiwaren: erster faktischer Beweis für die Abstammung dieses Volkes, Leipzig: Winter, 1860, OCLC 252676776, p. 86 notes that Bavarian farmers feasted on a slaughtered pig at Yule. Gabriel Turville-Petre suggested that names for Freyr and his sister which equate them with a boar and a sow respectively implied that consumption of the sacrificed boar was believed to be consumption of the god's flesh and absorption of his power.E. O. G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia, London: Weidenfeld, 1964, , p. 255; Habbe wrongly sees this as referring to a bear sacrifice.

It was formerly usual to spell the word and to interpret it as "atonement-boar" (the rare element can also mean "sacrifice")."", An Icelandic–English Dictionary, initiated by Richard Cleasby, subsequently revised, enlarged, and completed by , 2nd ed. with supplement by William A. Craigie, Oxford: Oxford/Clarendon, 1957, repr. 1975, , p. 580, online at Germanic Lexicon Project. However, following Eduard Sievers, it is usually now spelled with a short and taken as meaning "herd boar, leading boar", as Lombardic is defined in the as the boar "which fights and beats all other boars in the herd".

See also Germanic boar helmet Gullinbursti - Boar owned by Freyr Hildisvíni - Boar associated with Freyja Sæhrímnir - Boar killed and eaten each night in Valhöll

References

Sources . "". PBB 16 (1892) 540–44. . "". Volume 16, 1971. p. 433