Flitch of bacon custom far as Saxon times. Historian Hélène Adeline Guerber associates the origins of the flitch of bacon ceremony with the Yule feast of Norse tradition in which boar meat is eaten in honour of the god Freyr. The manor of Whichnoure (now Wychnor Hall) near Lichfield, Staffordshire was granted to Sir Philip de Somerville in the 10th year of the reign of Edward III (1336) from the Earl of Lancaster for a small fee but also on condition that he kept ready "arrayed at all times of the year but Lent, one bacon-flyke hanging in his hall at Whichnoure, to be
What Is a Nation? Language, by contrast, "invites us but does not force us, to unite". Countries which share the Spanish or English language don't merge with one another, while the people of Switzerland speak several languages. Modern nationhood also cannot be based on religion, which Renan observes, is currently practiced according to individual belief. "You can be French, English, German, yet Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or practicing no religion". Mutuality of interests is fine for corporations and their affiliates, but nationality is based on sentiment. Geography merely leads us astray, and often to violence: "Mountains don't know how to carve out countries". Renan concludes