By Roberta Beer
For many centuries, it has been traditional for country folk in Britain to light fires, sing songs and drink cider in the orchards on the Twelfth Night after Christmas, to wish the apple trees Good Health and New Year, as well as to each other. This ancient tradition is called wassailing.
Wassail means ” Good Health”. (The response, by the way, to the toast of “Wassail!” is “Drink Hail!” ). There was much merriment and cider drinking on Twelfth Night, as villagers lit fires in the orchards, sang traditional songs, and toasted the trees.
On this day, villagers also anointed with cider their chickens and other animals and brought the village plough into the church to be blessed by the priest. Peasants visited “the big house” to toast the landowner and his family. In return, servants filled the large two-handled “wassail cup” with cider and distributed food to the singers.
The wassail typically starts with a procession to the orchard, led by a wassail King or Queen. Pieces of toast are placed in the branches to attract robins, which are believed to be guardians of the orchard. The revellers bang pots and pans to wake the tree spirits and to drive away any bad spirits from the land and they enjoy a wassail drink of spiced cider or ale.
Wassailing at HCF
We have three orchards at Highbridge Community Farm and we’ve honoured this ancient tradition of blessing the trees with singing and food and drink. For the wassail, the team nominated one tree in each of our orchards to represent The Green Man, to bring fertility and good harvests to the whole Farm.
Beating the bounds
This is another ancient custom. When maps were rare, a community would periodically walk around its boundaries, beating the boundary markers with a pole as a way of maintaining the memory of the location of these boundaries. We combine this into our wassail ceremony by walking around our three orchards, “beating” the trees with a bean pole.
Wassail songs
Here are a couple of the traditional songs for the wassail. The first is more general for the celebration. The second is specifically for the apple trees.
Here we come a-wassailing
Here we come a-wassailing, among the trees so green.
Here we come a-wandering so fair to be seen.
Chorus
Love and joy come to you
And to your Wassail too.
And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.
We are not daily beggars that beg from door to door,
But we are your neighbours children, whom you have seen before.
Chorus
Good Master and good mistress too, às you sit beside the fire,
Pray think of us poor children, who wander in the mire.
Chorus
Bring us a table and spread it with a cloth.
Bring us out, some mouldy cheese and some of your Christmas Loaf.
Chorus
God Bless the Master of this house likewise his mistress too
And all the little children that round the table go.
Chorus
Apple tree wassail
Old apple tree, we wassail thee
Hoping that thou will bear
For the Lord know where we shall be
To be merry another year
Chorus
For to bloom well and to bear well
And merrily shall we be.
Let everyone drink up their glass
And health to the apple tree
For to bloom well and to bear well
And merrily shall we be.
Let everyone one drink up their glass
And health to the apple trees, brave boys
Here’s health to the apple tree
Oh, apple tree, we Wassail thee,
Hoping thou wilt bear
Hatfuls, cap-fuls, three bushel bag-fulls
Many more under the stairs.
Chorus