Like many teenagers of my generation, I enjoyed the low-budget horror and science fiction films that were a feature of the 1950s and early 1960s. They were fun, and the better ones stimulated the imagination, or gave one a few sleepless nights. One was 'The Fly', in which an inventor (Vincent Price) creates a machine to transport matter across space, but when he tests it, a house fly accidentally gets mixed up in the transfer procedure. Readers can imagine the results, and the sight of this photograph revived my forty-odd year old memories of 'The Fly'.

'Hunting the Mallard' is a traditional custom of All Souls' College, Oxford, which is now observed only once in every century, but was formerly an annual ceremony associated with the Feast, or Gaudy, on January 14th. It consists of a ceremonial hunt for the tutelary bird of All Souls, a mallard of great size that, according to legend, was discovered in a drain when the foundations of the college were being laid in 1437. One version of the tale says it was buried there, but another says it was very much alive and, being disturbed by the workmen, flew away and was lost,

Hence, on Mallard Night, after the feasting had ended, a search used to be made for it by all the Fellows, led by an elected 'Lord Mallard' and six officers appointed by him. These officers carried white staves in their hands, and wore medals struck for the occasion, depicting on one side the Lord Mallard and his attendants, and on the other, the Mallard on a long pole. At midnight, the whole inebriated company set off in procession, carrying lanterns and torches and raucously singing the Mallard Song, to hunt diligently for their mythical bird in every part of the building, in and out of rooms and closets, along passages, up and down stairs, and out over the leads. The search lasted for several hours, and did not usually end until daybreak.

At one time the custom seems to have almost died out, but now it has become an established tradition that the Mallard is hunted with full ceremony at the beginning of every century - the last time being on January 14th 2001.
Saffy

The Mallard Song exhibits such terrible scansion that one might believe that it had been composed by William Topaz McGonnagal  (see 'Saffy's Corner' June issue), had the Scots master not been born until centuries later. A few notes might be added:

1) It is not known which King Edward is meant.

2) 'Swappen' is Middle English, meaning to smite or strike - hence the modern English verb to swap or swop, meaning to strike a bargain by which one article is exhanged for another.

3) The second verse was dropped in 1752. It mentions historians of the 16th century, including Holinshed, from whom Shakespeare took so many of his tales and histories.

4) The 'scull of Tolus' may be a pun on the Latin for dome, with the parallel meaning of skull. Which Roman commander is meant I do not know. It is likely that the song was composed whilst the singers and mallard hunters imbibed a good deal of excellent port, and the words may not necessarily mean much.  

5) The fifth verse offended Victorian sensibilities, and was dropped in 1821. It has been restored from this year.

6) The last two lines might be paraphrased as, 'Just like the mallard ducks its head in a pond, so let us duck in a bowl ' (i.e. of punch, or some other alcoholic drink). Hunting the Mallard is clearly a most bibulous exercise, and it is perhaps well  for the sober atmosphere of Oxford University that it is undertaken but once a century.

Well, if I were looking for a giant Mallard, then my first stop would be the York Railway Museum. You would find a mighty big one there. But I am quite sure that the Mallard hunters don't really want to find their bird, which has now been lost for more than 500 years.