The ancient tradition of Wassailing

 

The ancient tradition of wassailing is a custom that has its roots in the eighth century and the celebrations generally take place on the Twelfth Night, 5th January, however the more traditional still insist in celebrating it on ‘Old Twelvey’, or the 17th January, the correct date; that is before the introduction of the Gregorian calender messed things up in 1752.

Wassailing harks back to pre-Christian times when rural communities had no knowledge of weather systems, climate patterns or fruit biennialism. Instead, their approach to ensuring a bountiful harvest in the forthcoming autumn was to appeal to the apple gods and goddesses, ward evil spirits from the orchards and attract benevolent insects and birds to the trees.

There are two distinct variations of wassailing. One involves groups of merrymakers going from one house to another, wassail bowl in hand, singing traditional songs and generally spreading fun and good wishes to their neightbors. The other form of wassailing is generally practiced in the countryside, particularly in fruit growing regions, where it is the trees that are blessed.

The celebrations vary from region to region, but generally involves the assembled group of revellers, comprising the farmers, farm workers and general villagers, in a noisy procession descending on orchards to sing to the trees. This was to 'wake them up' so they would bear well in the coming year.There is also an English folklore spirit called the Apple Tree Man who is honored during the Wassailing. The Apple Tree Man is the name for the oldest tree in the orchard and it is believed that the fertility of the orchard as a whole derives from this tree spirit. Extra attention is given to the eldest tree in the orchard and people may honor the spirit by pouring cider into the roots. Also the wassail queen, king or local benefactor places a slice of toast soaked in cider in the fork of a branch of the tree to attract good spirits.

It’s not just good spirits that are the focus of wassailers. As well as inviting good spirits in, bad spirits must be driven out. People drive the evil spirits out by banging pots and pans, or possibly morris dancing. After removing evil spirits from the tree, the tree is given a drink of mulled cider. If the tree isn’t too thirsty, then the remaining cider is drunk by the wassailers. If the cider is good enough, more dancing happens. As part of this celebration, they also poured wine and cider on the ground to encourage fertility in the crops.

As with all modern folklore traditions we may never know their true origins, but I think it’s pretty clear that this practice of wassailing the orchards taps into ancient Pagan practices and beliefs.

In England, some of traditional secular wassailing songs were performed back as early as the days of King Henry VIII (1491-1547).

The word “wassail” comes from the Anglo-Saxon phrase “waes hael”, which means “good health” Not by chance, groups would go out wassailing on cold evenings, and when they approached a door would be offered a mug of warm cider or ale.Traditionally after someone would say Wassail, the common response is “Drinc hæl” which means “drink and be healthy.”

Originally, the wassail was in fact a drink made of mulled ale, curdled cream, roasted apples, eggs, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and sugar, and it was served from huge bowls, often made of silver or pewter. Wassailing was traditionally done on New Year’s Eve and Twelfth Night, but some rich people drank Wassail on all the 12 days of Christmas.

 Wassail first appears in English literature in the Pagan poem Beowulf in the lines:
 

The rider sleepeth,
the hero, far-hidden; no harp resounds,
in the courts no wassail, as once was heard.

The word Wassail also makes an appearance as a toast that occurred right before the Saxon battle of Hastings began in 1066 CE. An Anglo-Norman poet wrote that in the last feast before the battle he heard a cry of:
 

Rejoice and wassail
Pass the bottle and drink healthy
Drink backwards and drink to me
Drink half and drink empty.

But it goes deeper than this because Wassiling is not just a phrase, greeting, or a toast - it’s lots of different things. While the word Wassail can refer to the act of toasting, it can also represent the beverage that was drunk during the toast. 

Today, Wassail is a popular holiday beverage and there are many different recipes for this drink. One of the oldest versions of Wassail is called Renwein, which is a spiced wine that resembled the ancient Roman drink called hypocras. The drink survived into the middle ages and became a popular wassailing drink among the wealthy.

Another version of the Wassail drink, called “Lambs Wool” is mentioned by none other than Shakespere himself during his play A Midsummer Night's Dream. This version of Wassil involved a dark beer that was whipped to create a frothy texture and then crab apples were floated in the drink. Shakespeare describes this version of Wassail in the lines:
 

Sometimes lurk I in the gossip's bowl
In very likeness of a roasted crab
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And down her withered dewlap pours the ale.

One legend about how Wassailing was created, says that a beautiful Saxon maiden named Rowena presented Prince Vortigen with a bowl of wine while toasting him with the words “waes hael”.

In any case, over the centuries, a great deal of ceremony developed around the custom of drinking wassail.

Traditionally Wassail was drunk in a bowl not a glass, the bowl was carried into a room with a great fanfare, a traditional carol about the drink was sung, and finally, the steaming hot beverage was served.and often people would dip their bread in the bowl or float toasted bread on top of the drink - this is where the word “toast” as a drinking term comes from. Beyond just being a drink and phrase, wassail is also a verb and “to go wassailing” is a tradition that likely has some fascinating Pagan origins, especially in the western region of England.

One of the most popular Wassailing Carols went like this:

A Wassail Bowl
Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green,
Here we come a-wassailing,
So fair to be seen:

Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too,
And God bless you and send you,
A happy New Year,
And God send you,
A happy new year.

 By the Middle Ages, the practice of sharing a giant bowl of wassail—that is, the practice of wassailing—evolved from a holiday celebration to a form of boozy begging. “At Christmastide, the poor expected privileges denied them at other times, including the right to enter the homes of the wealthy, who feasted them from the best of their provisions,” Robert Doares, an instructor at Colonial Williamsburg, explained. The poor would either ask to sip from their rich neighbor’s wassailing bowl or would bring their own bowl, asking for it to be filled. According to Doares, “At these gatherings, the bands of roving wassailers often performed songs for the master while drinking his beer, toasting him, his family, his livestock, wishing continued health and wealth.” The original  of Here We Come a-Wassailing are quite upfront about what’s going on:

 We are not daily beggars That beg from door to door But we are neighbours’ children Whom you have seen before.

Not all rich folk were happy to see wassailers at their doorstep. One 17th century polymath, John Selden, complained about

 "Wenches … by their Wassels at New-years-tide ... present you with a Cup, and you must drink of the slabby stuff; but the meaning is, you must give them Moneys.”

Misers like Selden may have had a point: Since alcohol was involved, wassailers often got too rowdy.  

 

“Drunken bands of men and boys would take to the streets at night, noise-making, shooting rifles, making ‘rough music,’ and even destroying property as they went among the wealthy urban homes,”  

 

wrote Hannah Harvester, formerly the staff folklorist at Traditional Arts in Upstate New York.

 

Then came the efforts to tame Christmas. In 17th century England, the Puritans looked down upon the revelry and merry-making associated with Christmas. They felt Christmas should be a time for solemn contemplation and nowhere did God call upon the people to celebrate the birth of Christ with extravagant feasting, drinking, and singing. To them, this behavior was not just inappropriate, it was sinful.

Led by Oliver Cromwell, in 1644 and 1647, Parliament effectively banned Christmas, a period lasting for about 20 years. During this time, people continued to celebrate, singing and feasting secretly. It was not until the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, that the laws became null and people were allowed again to openly celebrate.

By the 19th century, wassailing would mellow. Beginning in the 1830s, music publishers started releasing the first commercial Christmas carols, uncorking classics such as God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and The First Noel. Among them were dozens of wassailing songs, including the circa 1850 Here We Come a-Wassailing and dozens of others that are now, sadly, forgotten. As the custom of caroling became the dominant door-to-door pastime, alcohol-fueled begging dwindled.

The drunken band of rabble-rousers banging on doors begging for figgy pudding was now simply spreading good cheer door-to-door in the village while singing Christmas carols with a punch bowl of sweetened, spiced ale. but Caroling is an apt reminder that the Christmas traditions of modern times have roots that reach back centuries into the past. 

Wassail evolved from a hot punch-like beverage of mulled wine spiced with nutmeg and raisins to keep the winter chill at bay for loitering merrymakers to its modern Christmas cousin, the cider concoction containing wine, bobbed apples, and sliced oranges and in some households, to an even richer, cream-based punch containing sherry, crusts of bread or sweet cakes, and even eggs. As the punch matured, mixtures of madeira, sherry, or brandy began to appear alongside the the traditional ale or cider, becoming a modern, more complex split based punch. When settlers began arriving in America, “wassailing” had become nothing more than a celebratory gathering at home with friends during Christmas with a cider-based punch spiked with rum. An ocean now separated the old and new.

The folk singer Phil Tanner recorded Gower Wassail for a 78rpm record in November 1936 in London (matrix CA16053-1; Columbia FB1569). Tanner lived on the Gower Peninsular in South Wales where some of the people had originally come from Somerset in England. Many very old songs survived there because of the isolation of the community, similar in a way to the Appalachian music.

The Watersons with Mike Waterson in lead sang this song as Wassail Song on their 1965 LP Frost and Fire.A.L. Lloyd noted in the Watersons's original album:

 

We end as we begin, with a wassail song, sung from house to house at mid-winter, for luck. The wassailers, perhaps five or six of them, carried a wooden bowl decorated with holly and ivy. in which to collect money or bread and cheese or beer, in return for the good luck wishes conveyed by their song. Sometimes they carried a be-ribboned elder bough as an emblem of their standing as luck-bringers. Many wassail songs indicate that in the past the reception of the luck-visitors was a ceremonious affair, with the person who gave them entry dressed in her best, wearing a silver pin or carrying a golden mace. The version here, led by Michael Waterson, is one familiar in the West country and extending into the Gower Peninsula of Wales. It was one of the favourite tunes of the fine old Gower singer, Phil Tanner.

 

Wassailing may not be as popular as it  once was nevertheless in some parts of England, such as Somerset and Sussex where apples are grown especially for cider, Wassailing still today takes place on Twelfth Night or sometimes New Year’s Eve or even Christmas Eve. People go into apple orchards and then sing songs, make loud noises and dance around to scare of any evil spirits and also to wake up the trees so they will give a good crop.

It’s also a common practice to place toast which has been soaked in beer into the bows of the trees to feed and thank the trees for giving apples.

In parts of South Wales in the United Kingdom, there is the tradition of the “Mari Lwyd” wassailing horse, but this is another story https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-tradition-of-mari-llwyd-y-fari-lwyd.html. Other ancient wassailing traditions are also practiced each year in London where the Bankside Mummers and the Holly Man will ‘bring in the green’ and waes hael the people and the River Thames.

Wassail remains an important  way to connect with the past and bring it to life. It’s a way to celebrate community, culture, and your connection to nature. And for Pagans it has even more importance because it helps us tap into  rich ancient traditions and beliefs. When you say “Wassail” you’re honoring pagan-inspired literary works such as Beowulf. You’re celebrating the apple harvest and the ancient spirits that live in the orchards. And you’re honoring a tradition  that goes all the way back to the Roman solstice celebration known as Saturnalia. It certainly brings me a warm feeling.

Wassail mostly ia a salutatory celebration of a long year as you gather with those you cherish and raise a glass of good cheer to toast to a healthy, happy new year and enduring friendships. For wassail is, first and foremost, a salute.So,in light of thar. “Wassail! Drink hail!”

 

 The Watersons - Wassail Song