For the first time in hundreds of years the city will celebrate the legend of the Bradford boar.

The 600-year-old story has been revived by Bradford's very own boar hunter John Cunningham.

According to the legend, people would gather in the centre of Bradford to celebrate the killing of a giant beast which had terrorised the city.

Each year a descendant of the hunter who had killed the animal would blow three times on a horn to mark the occasion on St Martin's Day - November 11.

And tomorrow the tradition will be revived for the first time in centuries as the Gelder's Horn is blown in Centenary Square.

The event has been organised by New Zealand hunter John Cunningham who is helping to spread the story of the Bradford Boar on both sides of the world.

The 39-year-old was born in Bradford but emigrated with his family to New Zealand when he was just seven.

He now earns a living hunting down wild boar in his own 50-acre forest and lives in a cabin which he built for himself.

During a trip home to Bradford two years ago he discovered that boar hunting had played an important part in the history of his home city.

Bradford's coat of arms features a boar's head without a tongue because of a story dating back 600 years.

The Bradford boar is said to have terrorised the people of Cliffe Wood, to the north of the city as it is today.

The problem became so bad that the Lord of the Manor offered a reward to anyone who could capture or kill the beast.

A man called Rushworth killed the boar and cut out his tongue to prove it.

Rushworth's descendants are said to have celebrated the event each year by blowing on a horn, which is now kept in City Hall.

Bradford Council's premises manager James Brumfitt said the legend of the boar was recorded in literature at City Hall. But he said there was no record of the last time the horn was blown to mark the occasion.

Tomorrow's ceremony takes place at noon and will be attended by the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Valerie Binney.

Mr Cunningham wants the ceremony to become an annual event and he has been so taken with the legend that he has even re-named a town in its honour.

Mr Cunningham bought 50 acres of land where the former town of Kotari in New Zealand once stood.

And he has renamed the land Bradford Boar Town.

Mr Cunningham lives 15 miles away from the nearest town and is self-sufficient, eating the animals which he kills.

He is also producing a film about the history and how he re-discovered the legend of the Bradford boar.

He will be filming tomorrow's ceremony and also has footage of him in New Zealand and at the Boar's Well urban wildlife park off Bolton Road, where the animal is believed to have been killed and at Hunts Yard in Great Horton, which was given to Rushworth as a reward for killing the boar.