Customs
Every hundred years, and generally on 14 January, there is a commemorative feast after which the fellows parade around the College with flaming torches, singing the Mallard Song and led by a "Lord Mallard" who is carried in a chair, in search of a legendary mallard that supposedly flew out of the foundations of the college when it was being built. During the hunt the Lord Mallard is preceded by a man bearing a pole to which a mallard is tied - originally a live bird, latterly either dead (1901) or carved from wood (2001). The last mallard ceremony was in 2001 and the next will be held in 2101. The precise origin of the custom is not known but it dates from at least 1632.
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Famous quotes containing the word customs:
“So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If someone were to put a proposition before men bidding them choose, after examination, the best customs in the world, each nation would certainly select its own.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)