Once each century, this strange and obscure tradition has been reenacted at All Souls College, Oxford. According to legend, during construction of one of the college's buildings in 1438, a mallard was flushed from its nesting site. On the second January fourteenth of each century, a specially chosen Lord Mallard and six assistants, armed with liquor, latern, and staff, have set out to right an ancient wrong by finding the elusive duck (which is rumored to have grown enormously in nearly six hundred years), singing a ballad whose refrain is: "O, by the blood of King Edward / It was a swapping, swapping mallard." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
