The Tantony Pig

St Anthony, whose day is 17 January, was the patron of pigs. Stow remembered that when London market officers seized pigs that were starved or unfit to eat, they slit their ears, and a proctor of St Anthony’s Hospital would tie a bell round the neck of one and let it feed on the dunghills. Nobody would harm it, and anyone who once fed it was followed about ever after. From this came the saying that someone follows another and whines like an Anthony, or Tantony, pig.