The ancient society of the Swan and Lyre, dating back to 1500, described itself as a "Worshipful company of Musicians," and was an effort to organize London minstrels into a guild. It used as its symbol a swan standing on a crest beneath a lyre and ultimately met at a local tavern. In the 18th century the tavern owners, in a not-so-veiled attempt to mock the pretentious name of the society, designed a crest with a goose standing in front of a griddle, and named the tavern the Goose and Gridiron. There, on June 24, 1717, four Lodges met to form what has become modern Freemasonry.
