Wassailing the apple trees

"Here's to thee old apple tree Whence thou mayst bud

And whence thou must blow
And whence thou bear apples anew
Hats full, Caps full ,
Bushel bushel sacks full....

And my pockets too!"


"Wassaile the trees that they may beare

many a plum and many a peare,
for more or lesse fruits they will bring
As you do give them wassailling"

"Huzza, Huzza, in our good town
The bread shall be white, and the liquor be brown
So here my old fellow I drink to thee
And the very health of each other tree.
Well may ye blow, well may ye bear
Blossom and fruit both apple and pear.
So that every bough and every twig
May bend with a burden both fair and big
May ye bear us and yield us fruit such a stors
That the bags and chambers and house run o'er."

The ancient tradition of wassailing the orchards in the West Country not only still exists but is an event with a a large amount of growing interest. More and more wassailing events are springing up through out the region with growing enthusiasm. Be this to do with the new apple orchards being planted or the increase in the amount of people drinking locally produced cider more and more people are getting back into this old custom. Cider orchards once brought a huge income to the communities in the region, one reason why this celebration might have been so important.

For some it has always been a way to link to the land, connecting with nature and what she gives us. A pagan festival that gives a strong connection and belonging to the land where we live. Its a chance to join up with the community and look forward to a healthy new year. Dating back to pre-Christianity, its a kind of fertility right with post mid-winter singing and shouting to drive the evil spirits from the apple trees. (Wassailing is a subject of many an old folk song) A night of feasting on cake and cider, choosing a wassail queen and pouring spicy cider on the roots of the trees for a good and healthy crop of apples in the following year. Everyone makes as much noise as possible and the men fire guns up into the tress to drive the spirits out! A wassail bowl might be carried to the orchard and passed around to all.

Some say that it was also practised by the Romans as a relic to Pomona, Roman goddess of fruits. There has been much written about the subject over centuries and wassailing featured in the great epic tale of Beowulf. There is one story dating from the mid 1800s which tells of such a party returning to the farmhouse to find that the awaiting hogshead of cider had been completely drained. A fair old rumpus ensued as the men tried to find the culprit when suddenly a piskie appeared and in a high voice chirruped, "I sipped once", and with that vanished.

I was joined by my parents and Oli for the Wassailing at Stoke Gabriel in Devon, not far from where we live. One of many wassailing events in the area on this old twelfth night. It absolutely poured with rain for the whole evening, but spirits were not dampened. Folk gathered to watch the Wassail King and Queen to be carried to the apple orchard on chairs decorated with ivy. The Orchard looked so magical, all the trees being decorated with lanterns. People in the procession also carried little lanterns that they had made. Once at a chosen tree we were led to chant a Wassail blessing the king and queen were lifted up into the tree and placed bread in the branches, an offering to the robins who eat the bugs! At the end of each chant rifles were fired and much noise made to scare away evil spririts from the trees. We also sang the well known 'Here we go a wassailing' song. Afterwards local singing groups sang other traditional wassaliing songs while we drank hot spicey cider. Morris dancers also did their bit followed by the traditional mummers play.
Morris dancing is a form of ritual folkdance. It is ritual as opposed to social dance, that is, it is danced with purposes beyond fun, although it also fun. These purposes are obscured by the mists of time, as is much about the Morris, but they have something to do with fertility and the rites of agrarian society. The dancers usually wear bells at their knees and often wave hankies (to attract and welcome spirits?) or clash sticks (symbolizing the eternal battle between winter and summer?), and the dances have traditionally been performed around the time of major seasonal crosspoints in the calendar. They are thought to be part of the universal urge to influence and honor the unknowable forces which govern our lives. Since Morris is a living tradition, new dances are being written all the time, to tradtional or new tunes.
The mummers plays which usually involve a hero (Saint George) and the baddie 'Turkish knight ' is about death and rebirth. There are three deaths, that of George, the Turk and the giant! Each one is brought back by the doctor and his handy bag of cures!!!

Mummers and "guisers" (performers in disguise) can be traced back at least to the Middle Ages, though when the term "mummer" appears in ancient manuscripts it is rarely clear what sort of performance was involved. A key element was visiting people in disguise at Christmas. At one time, in the royal courts, special allegorical plays were written for the mummers each year usually the speech is in rhyme.

Although usually broadly comic performances, the plays seem to be based on underlying themes of duality and and resurrection generally involve a battle between two or more characters, perhaps representing good against evil.Usually they feature a doctor who has a magic potion which is able to resuscitate a slain character.

In mummers’ plays, the central incident is the killing and restoring to life of one of the characters. The principal characters, presented in a wide variety of manner and style, are a Hero, his chief opponent, the Fool, and a quack Doctor; the defining feature of mumming plays is the Doctor, and the main purpose of the fight is to provide him with a patient to cure. The hero sometimes kills and sometimes is killed by his opponent; in either case, the doctor comes to restore the dead man to life.

Wassail comes from the Anglo Saxon 'Waes hael' which means 'Good Health!' But according to the Oxford dictionary to wassail is to 'make merry with much alcohol'!!