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.
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 words of the song are as follows:
A folksong (Roud 1517) found in southern England is an accumulative song about the body of the mallard. [4] [5]
All Souls College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows. It has no student members, but each year, recent graduates at Oxford are eligible to apply for a small number of examination fellowships through a competitive examination and, for those shortlisted after the examinations, an interview.
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A mallard is a type of duck.
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