The boar on banners, badges and handles
In medieval England, King Richard III took a white boar as his personal badge, and his followers wore it cast in lead, pewter and silver. In 2009, a small silver-gilt boar badge found in fields in Leicestershire helped archaeologists pin down where the Battle of Bosworth of 1485 actually took place.
Long before that, the wild boar was a symbol of courage and endurance in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art, and hunters and foresters have kept it as an emblem ever since. Here it is inlaid in grey rubber on a raised-dot handle, on a tactical knife from Pakistan made for outdoor jobs: rope, kindling and opening packs, with the flipper tab leaving one hand free to hold the work.
